The Holidays are a special time for many people and here at Sweet Leaf Tea we’re no different. We enjoyed decorating the office and making the place we spend a lot of our time at, as festive as possible.

The other part of the Holidays that I am a huge fan of is giving! A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a consumer looking to buy one of our cool SLT t-shirts for her son Dan for Christmas. I explained to Cheri that our online store was not up and running but that if she sent me his size, I’d send a t-shirt and some other goodies her way. Dan was overjoyed when he opened his gift and found a plethora of SLT swag all for him! Here are some pictures of Dan sporting his new t-shirt and drinking his favorite drink.

Happy Holidays from all of us here at SLT! Have a fine 2009!

This past Saturday (12/6/08) was the kick-off of Eat Local Week here in Austin, sponsored by the awesome folks at Edible Austin. http://www.edibleaustin.com/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=188&Itemid=172

Eat Local Week started with The Urban Farm Bicycle Tour. My cousin Leia and I took on the 24 mile challenge and loved every moment of it. Austin TX has had some crazy, funky weather lately and Saturday was amazingly beautiful and the perfect day to head out on a bike and check out local farms. The first stop on our ride was Boggy Creek Farm, where we just had to buy some succulent fresh spinach, white and red beets, (Secret passion of mine, beets!! Don’t wrinkle your nose; they are so much tastier than your mind is telling you!) butternut squash and some very tasty sweet potatoes.

The next short jaunt took us to Zhi Tea for the Austin Tea Party.  Local tea makers were on hand to sample their fine teas, and even share some food. Zhi Tea had a great catering company called Ecstatic Cuisine (http://www.ecstaticcuisine.com/) on hand to prepare and serve some of the tastiest creations ever containing tea. The smoky-flavored duck confit made with lap sang tea was what dreams might surely be made from. The pumpkin cake with the chai tea cream cheese topping was worth coming back more than 2 or 3 times to their booth. Sweet Leaf Tea was one of the companies highlighted and it was great watching Happy work his magic with the crowd. The Tea Party was not supposed to start until noon, but the cyclist showed up around 11:30AM and all of the folks running booths were scrambling to get going. Happy was laid back as usual with a huge grin while putting up the SLT booth. Rock on Happy!

Our next stop took us across 183 from the east side to Hands of the Earth Farms. We walked around their grounds and marveled about the beauty of fresh cilantro, carrots, and leeks. They had a lot of greens and one of the coolest looking houses on their land that I have seen in Austin. I apologize to our audience for not taking a picture of it.

The last farm we visited was Rain Lily Farm where we saw the largest kale I have ever seen, some cute dogs (including an Italian greyhound that I fell in love with) and a goat. All of this was in a regular east Austin neighborhood. Fantastic! When we left Rain Lily, we headed back to Zhi Tea to get some more great tea samples and duck confit. The food was already gone, but we drank some more delicious tea.

When we finally returned to our cars at Sunset Valley Farmers Market, it was 8 hours and about 31 miles later. We had a great day out and about, and we both have some tasty, local veggies to grub on back at the casa!

Our 30-foot school bus, painted from head-to-toe by Big Brothers Big Sisters for the Houston Art Car Parade, has been hanging out in the DFW area for the past few months, and I had the ‘privilege’ of driving it back to Austin after the Thanksgiving holiday.  Before the journey, I took my whole family for a ride.  No family bus ride would be complete without a ‘Chinese fire drill’.

Denton to Austin in 5.5 hours.  No radio.  No A/C or heater.  Max speed of 55mph.  Heart of gold.  It’s our very own ‘Little Engine That Could”.

Awesome.

Sweet Leaf Tea and Tito’s Vodka sponsored a hole for the Houston Astro’s Alumni Golf Tournement yesterday. Those guys went crazy for the Mango and Tito’s.

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