I’ve got feelings for Granny…
By JamesDrinkard on Feb 8 Filed In Austin, Texas, Events, Guest Blogger 3 Comments
Hey there! You might be wondering who I am, so I’m gonna give you a brief run down.
The name is James. James Drinkard. I’m 18 years of age, and I’m fortunate enough to live in the heart of Sweet Leaf Tea, music festivals, amazing food, and the best summers ever. That’s right, beautiful Austin, TX!
And since you can tell a lot about someone by their favorite flavor, I’m all Original, hands down! (What’s yours? Be on the look out for the new Lemon Black and Citrus Green tea. They’re delicious!)
Throughout the past 5 years that I’ve been sippin’ this organic goodness, I’ve had some really incredible times with Granny that are definitely worth sharing. I’ve also become quite a Sweet Leaf fan/connoisseur. And that’s not just me saying that…
See, I told you! But I’m not all weird about it… don’t worry. (Though if you saw my room, you might think otherwise.)
Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to share with you a little story…In summer of 2008, a friend and I went around asking local businesses if they could help us raise funds to get to a summer camp. Some companies gave us much appreciated cash donations, but the good folks at Sweet Leaf gave us the coolest donation of them all – an opportunity to sling tea! Not only did this help us get to our camp, but it taught us many important lessons. Like how water is only good for brewing Sweet Leaf Tea, and that it’s called slinging tea, not selling. This easily takes the cake for one of the best SLT (and job) experiences ever!
Tea-Slingin' – 2008 Hanging at the Austin Ice Cream festival, doing what I might have been born to do.
Fund raising! The day we dropped by the office to play our smash hit “I want Sweet Leaf Tea”. (Tip: People are generally nice to you if you show up to play music.)
When it comes down to it, the reason why I am absolutely in love with Sweet Leaf Tea is because they have a personality that I’ve never before seen in a company. An unmatched amount of pure awesomeness, both in the bottle and in the people. Being around the Sweet Leaf Tea’m is an incredibly uplifting experience that is not only a source of a great product, but inspiration. Living proof that “If you work hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen”. A perfect mix between business and pleasure that provides you with your recommended daily value of positive vibes in every bottle.
I’ve got plenty more stories to come, and even a Sweet Leaf Tea spelling lesson. Until we meet again, keep on chuggin’!
Taste Buds a Rockin’ at the Almost Famous Chef Competition
By April on Feb 5 Filed In Austin, Texas, Events, Food & Beverage, Nestle Waters, Social Media Add a Comment
A few weeks ago I received an email from our Director of Food Service, Scott Witucki inviting folks in our office to the Almost Famous Chef Competition hosted by the International Culinary School at The Art Institute of Austin and sponsored by the refreshing beverage, San Pellegrino. Now, if you’ve been reading our blog long or follow my Twitter feed, then you KNOW how much I love food, especially good, quality, fru-fru food. This means I RSVP’d immediately!
Dylan and I were expecting a formal sit-down dinner wrapped around the competition. This was not the case at all, which was a good thing. When we walked in, we were greeted by Barbara Brown from Nestle Waters who was ecstatic to have Sweet Leaf Tea represented. We exchanged introductions and then turned around to see 2 screens on one side and a panel of esteemed judges on the other. Once I looked at the screens I noticed chefs scrambling to plate their dishes for the judges and a live Twitter feed of the competition. Jennifer LaVigne was standing in front of the panel of judges answering questions about her dish, the Lamb and Wild Mushroom Wellington. (Tasty!) We were invited to grab some hors d’oeuvres and some beverages, and then go through the (EXCITING & DELICIOUS) buffet line. Oh yea, my reason for BEING!!
Chef-in-training, Austin Anzak serving up the Wellington.
What was in the buffet line you ask? Each of the 7 aspiring chefs made something tasty and different from the last person. Were there a couple of what I’d call “safe dishes”? Sure, and they were still amazing, and one of those won the competition. The winner, Johnathan Lynch created a Pan Bronzed Supreme of Chicken. It was comprised of a chicken quarter served with a risotto cake with wilted spinach stacked between two slices of tomatoes, all sitting in a sexy butter sauce of some kind.
Winning entree by Jonathan Lynch
My absolute fave? The Seared Diver Scallops, plated with German-style fingerling potatoes (vinegar and bacon baby!), sea beans and chanterelle mushrooms. The vinegar flavor and the flavored honey drizzled lightly all over it, shoved this tasty dish completely over the edge. A friend of the winner came over to comment about the happy dance I was doing over the distinct flavors that were hitting my palate. High five to Shay Prigmore for rocking my world!!
Shay Prigmore's Seared Diver Scallops
Dylan voted for the extremely tasty (but too sweet) meat loaf. I apologize now for losing the picture I took of it plated, along with the Austin-locals name on it. He served his meat loaf (dedicated to his grandma, the soul-food chef of their family) with a side of macaroni and cheese, glazed carrots and my favorite kind of green bean (before I discovered sea beans!) haricot vert. I loved listening to the chef answer the questions about the dish. The one thing he’d have changed? He would have added some sugar to the carrots for that extra punch. I’m glad he didn’t as the sauce on the ML and the natural sweetness of the carrots were already almost too much. If he added some heat to it (as the KEYE news anchor, Jason Wheeler suggested) like Tabasco sauce and/or chili powder (my 2 secret ingredients in my ML) it would have been my favorite dish. I love that he called his dish, “Blue Plate Special”. It was indeed!
All of the chefs and judges together
Honorable mention goes to Jason Flato (a huge SLT fan!) and his Louisiana Barbecue Shrimp. The shrimp was served upon a slice of baguette that had been rubbed with roasted garlic and then had a SUPER SEXY sauce made of butter, thyme, and more garlic drizzled upon it. The shrimp were good, but the slice of bread with all of the flavors sopped up on it was a party for our taste buds.
Jason Flato and his amazing Louisiana BBQ Shrimp
Interested in watching the chefs move forward? Follow the AI Chef Comp on Twitter. Bon appetite!
Everybody loves the Sweet Leaf Tea!
By Guest on Feb 4 Filed In Austin, Texas, Intern Add a Comment
Post by Jessie Hall
I’m in my second week of my marketing internship here at SLT and it has been even better than the first week! I love that every day I come to the office there will probably be a new dog running around that I haven’t gotten to play with yet (I have to admit Oscar is my favorite so far).
Me & Oscar bonding
In my experience you can tell if you’ll like an internship within the first few days and I know I will love it here. While I learn more about marketing I look forward to getting to know a great brand, play some ping pong and drink all the free tea I can manage to keep down.
My intern buddy is Eliza. I’ve only worked with her a few days but I already know we’re going to get along great. A few things to know about Eliza if you ever run into her at the office or at an event: she is crazy friendly, loves listening to oldies (this has become a daily routine with us haha) and is a traveling enthusiast.
We have already worked on a few projects since we started and each in their own way has been a great way of introducing us to the brand and what it’s all about. I can’t wait to see what else we get to work on this semester and the great SLT followers that we’ll get to interact with along the way.
We had Triplets!
By Megan on Feb 3 Filed In Food & Beverage, Organic, Sweet Leaf Tea Company News 4 Comments
Yes, that’s right! Sweet Leaf Tea has just had triplets! No, Granny’s not having babies—she’s just too old for that. (No offense, Granny.)
What I mean is, we’ve just welcomed three new family members to our flavor line-up! Introducing “Lemon Iced Tea,” “Citrus Green Tea,” and “Diet Citrus Green Tea.” Aren’t they cute???
Sweet Leaf Tea's New Flavors: Citrus Green Tea, Lemon Iced Tea and Diet Citrus Green Tea!
Let me back up. I’m Megan, the Innovation Manager here at Sweet Leaf Tea. And to be honest, I’m usually too buried in spreadsheets to do anything else. (What? We have a blog??) But as it turns out, those spreadsheets told me that we were missing some of the most popular flavors on the market! Thus the birth of Lemon, Citrus, and Diet Citrus.
Citrus Green Tea is already a major hit around here. We brought it into the office on Friday for the first time, and all the cans were immediately drunk, taken home, or stashed in a secret hiding place. (Don’t worry guys—we’ll get more.)
Citrus Green and Lemon Iced Tea come in our new cans too!
More on Citrus Green’s siblings, Lemon and Diet Citrus, next week!
Blue Bonnet Cafe-A Marble Falls Institution
By April on Feb 2 Filed In Food & Beverage 6 Comments
I want to start this post by saying that I am ridiculously lucky to have 2 of 4 grandparents still alive. Nanny and Papa live in Kingsland, TX on beautiful Lake LBJ. You can literally walk down the hill in their back yard and jump off the retaining wall into the lake. It’s fan-freakintastic I tell you what!! I grew up water skiing and swimming all over that lake. When you go to Kingsland be prepared to do a lot of relaxing because there is not a lot to do (not counting fishing/water activities) and definitely not a lot of places to eat.
Over the years, restaurants other than Dairy Queen have moved into Kingsland, like Sweet Things Bakery (Papa’s favorite place in town, since he wakes up at 4am daily. Yes, really!) and Storm’s. This is good since my mom and I got into a scuffle with some folks at DQ and we’ve been permanently banned from DQ Country for a few years now. Take that Belt-Buster!
But for a little more variety, one must roll (or boat) into Marble Falls. This brings me to the reason for this post, the infamous Blue Bonnet Cafe.
Pie Happy Hour! Is there ANYTHING happier than that?
This place has been doing crazy, stand-in-line-to-wait business since 1929! Great-tasting, home-cooked food for you to enjoy in a no-frills atmosphere. Did I mention that they are SUPER affordable too? We are talking small-town tastiness here folks! So I bet you’re wondering what they are FAMOUS for. Well, it’s their ah-mazing, pies. They even have a pie happy hour! Does an hour get happier than that? I am sorry for not taking any pictures of the slices I bought and ate on my way home AND shared with Dylan once I got home. Trust me when I say that he’s lucky there was anything left. I brought home a slice of lemon meringue and a slice of pecan. I am willing to go out on a limb and tell you that they were both baked in heaven. Seriously.
My Papa and I haven’t had quality “us” time since I was a kid, so we both really enjoyed our breakfast together. Papa was a little unnerved by my picture taking during the meal and he kept saying, “Whatever floats your boat, April.” I tried to explain that I blog for Sweet Leaf Tea and I like to write about food and other things that interest me, which made a little more sense to him than just that I like to take pictures of food. (Which I do..) He has a computer but he’s not online. We’ll see if we can change that. Do you have a grandparent on the interweb?
Ralph Nault chilling during brunch.
Food-wise, Papa had a plate of biscuits and gravy and as you can see by the picture below, I enjoyed 1 pancake, a Denver omelet, with hash browns and a couple of biscuits. For those of you that have been tracking my weight-loss, er, plateau as it seems to be, then you know that I shouldn’t be grubbing on such a hearty breakfast. That’s why I took half of it home to share with Dylan and had the other part Monday morning. Awesome idea, right?!?! The pancake was golden brown with a little bit of a grainy, sugary layer on the outside and tasted really light. The biscuits were slap-ur-momma good. I had to bring 1 of 2 of them home to Dylan because I don’t think I’ve eaten a biscuit that was so light I had to hold it down on my plate to keep it there. Now, that’s a sign of a tasty biscuit my friends!
An important tid-bit to know when you are going to hit the Blue Bonnet Cafe in Marble Falls, they ONLY accept cash or check. They do have an ATM machine on premise that only charges $1.50 for cash, but it’s best to just be prepared.
Enjoy! If you go that direction take the time out to stop by. Come hungry, leave fulfilled knowing that you just grubbed at a Hill Country institution. What’s your favorite landmark, small-town restaurant?
