Tag Archives: fairtrade

tea love…and a giveaway

Posted on by
37

cityhippyfarmgirl

It’s dark outside when the steaming kettle flicks off. Pouring the hot water into the little green pot, I wait, and I stretch. Then pour again. This time into my empty cup. The smell of the deep spices hit and I slowly breathe them in. Add a little milk and take a tiny satisfying sip.

My morning, my chai.

This is how I love starting the day. With most of my day being fairly unpredictable, I like the very start of my day to be predictable. A simple ritual of a small pot of chai.

When we were in Byron Bay at the end of last year. I came across a tea at the local markets. A tea, that I instantly fell in love with. Loose leaf, and chunky just the way I liked it. It was the best one I’d found so far. I’d never considered that I was fussy with my chai tea, but it turned out, actually I was.

DSC_0158 copy

I wanted loose leaf, (tea bags really are a needless waste of resources when you are drinking at home- plus it tastes better.)

I didn’t want my tea to look like someone had just scraped the bottom of the barrel, lining my teapot with a vague tea smelling dust.

I wanted spices in there and I wanted to see them.

I didn’t want an excessive amount of annoying packaging.

I also wanted to know my chai tea was fairtrade, organic and local (as much as possible).

(And I certainly didn’t want any chai powder or syrup… pffft!)

So there it was, all in my cup. I had found exactly the kind of tea I had been looking for. Simple happiness.

cityhippyfarmgirl

Branching out into some of the company’s other tea and I wasn’t disappointed. Each one that I’ve tried is lovely, really lovely.

Skin Glow– while I can’t attest to my skin actually glowing, it certainly felt good drinking. With ingredients of spearmint, calendula, burdock, echinacea and red clover- how could it not be beneficial?

cityhippyfarmgirl

Floral Love– this one intrigues me. I don’t know what it is, but I’m completely drawn to it. I can’t keep my nose out of the box. It’s got beautiful soft floral tones to it, without being too heady and over powering. It’s subtle enough to draw you in, making you want more, and to take another sip. This tea really is, a late summers picnic with a loved one- balmy warm weather, with a laden picnic rug, sitting in a field of beautiful flowers. If there was ever a tea that could be a soft finger being traced up an afternoons sun kissed arm, or tiny kisses at the base of your neck…well, this would be it.

(Rose petals, chamomile, lavender, rose hips, calendula, corn flower.)

Immunity– Was well timed after a run of three separate family illness over the last three weeks. I was taking anything I could get hold of.

(Echinacea, rose hips, ginger, licorice root, nettle, lemon balm.)

cityhippyfarmgirl

Calming– Goodnight kisses for small kids tucked in bed. Book by my side, and an exhalation. Mentally and physically letting go of the day and all she held. Long slow sips…

(Chamomile, peppermint, lemon balm and lavender.)

I love supporting companies like this. Knowing where my shopping dollar is going is always incredibly important to me. A local small family run company that offers ‘all natural, certified organic and fair trade tea, chai, naturopathic blends and herbal tissanes.’ The teas are designed by a naturopath, are hand blended and packaged, the company give one percent, believe in sustainability and…

…above all, it’s just really, really lovely tea.

*************

If you would like to try some of Love Chai, Love Tea‘s blends. I have some different blends to give away to three people. To win, I would love to hear what your favourite brew is and the setting in which to drink it, (real, imagined or perhaps a memory?)

Have you sipped chai at first light as the sun rose over the Himalayas?

Is it a quiet moment to your self sipping green tea before the family get up?

Do you wish you could go back in time- sharing a cup of hot sweet black tea with your grandmother aboard a Canadian bound ocean liner?

Paint me a picture, tell me a story.

(Giveaway ends 12pm Sunday 26th May)

********

EDIT- winners are… Amber, Anne, Rose

cityhippyfarmgirl

Love Chai Love Tea

and where to find it if you would like to buy some.

green takeaway coffee cups

Posted on by
21

I like coffee. I really do. I don’t think I have a coffee habit, I just really like the stuff. Good coffee, (I don’t bother wasting my time with bad coffee.)

For our home coffee I can only get from one place in the whole city. Kind of restrictive yes, but that’s what the palate dictates. It’s fairtrade, it’s local-ish, (from East Timor) and tastes just fine.

Mr Chocolate also likes coffee. He didn’t before he met me though. Before me he was a tea drinker. Ha!…not now though. Long work hours, two pint sized Monkeys, and a coffee brewing wife all point towards kissing that tea goodbye a long time ago.

All those long work hours, requires the odd pep up from his favoured local barristas during the working week. Always on the go he needs a coffee to match so it needs to be a takeaway coffee. Last year The Monkeys gave him a reusable coffee cup (KeepCup) for those weekly coffee pickups. Instead of using a disposable cup, sucking back the black liquid, and casting the cup aside. He could now hand the cup over, get it filled, suck back the black liquid and wash it for next time.

There are a few different reusable coffee cups out there on the market these days. As more people spread the word and hand over their cups to their local barristas, I hope this will just become the norm for takeaway coffee drinkers.

One less thing to be dumped into landfill.

the chocolate gene

Posted on by
14

Chocolate.

Chocolate seems to play a very big part in this family. I wasn’t so fussed on it until I met my husband, otherwise known as Mr Chocolate. He doesn’t need chocolate, chocolate needs him. If he stopped consuming, the whole chocolate industry may just tumble down. So it’s safe to say after we first got together, he has slowly infiltrated my chocolate past, to a home now that is not complete unless there is a little dark something hidden away somewhere.

The monkeys came along and they too have inherited the dreaded chocolate gene. Other sweets thrown aside and scorned, their eyes only on the good stuff…. chocolate.

Monkey Boy is rather partial to a piece of dark chocolate, and will happily savour it, holding it in his hand and slowly nibbling at the outsides. The Little Monkey will suck up anything in his path to get to it. With a spark in is eye, and very fast feet… “Choklo! Choklo!…. CHOKLO!”

A friend recently challenged Mr Chocolate on a Chocolate Extravaganza (who could eat the most), I was quietly skeptical, but remained cheerfully optimistic. My pint sized girl friend had not seen my man in action you see. She thought her modestly gutsy efforts in consuming a packet of Tim Tams would match the “why stop when there is still more” attitude of my husband. The Chocolate Extravaganza was cancelled. Scared off, with the rather sombre face of mine, and whispered words of “You don’t have a chance…. you will NEVER win against him…”

When I first met Mr Chocolate, any chocolate would do. Sure he had his favourites, but when it came down to the line, he wasn’t that fussy. Years have gone by, and more than a few kilos of chocolate later, that line is in a completely different position. We try to be as mindful as possible, on what brands and types we buy. A sucker for dark chocolate, we really like Whittakers Dark Ghana. It’s a New Zealand company, that uses Fair Trade Chocolate, readily available and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. The Dark Ghana comes from Ghana (duh) and is bought through the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative. This Fairtrade certified cooperative of cocoa farmers has 45,000 members. Selling this way keeps the prices higher and more stable for the seller. Also investing in better farming methods that are more sustainable for their themselves and their industry.

Its great that there are more and more chocolate companies looking at changing their sourcing methods and encouraging fairtrade practices. This must mean that through greater awareness people are changing things with their spending dollars.  An example is Cadbury . Cadbury Schweppes is one of the largest producers of chocolate in the world  and has recently started producing a fair trade option for their Dairy Milk range in Australia. Be it a little controversially.

I know there are loop holes in these methods and problems will remain with things like child labour, but the more people talk about it and the more the consumer makes a choice with their shopping dollar the more, (I am ever hopeful) changes will come of it. There are more and more fairtrade chocolate options being made available, just have a peek.

Mindful grocery shopping

Posted on by
5

Shopping- I really try and buy the weekly groceries as organic, locally produced, Australian owned, as little added numbers/preservatives etc,  minamally packaged as possible, and still within a budget. This can be a really time consuming thing to do, due to checking and rechecking – (well up until recently it has been.) I can usually alternate between two different main supermarkets, and know now which ones regularly have the products that I want. Add in some farmers markets, fruit shop and health food shop and we are away!

This has been no easy feat! I think it has taken the best part of the last year for me to now know most brands which fall in to my buying categories. For a long time it was reading the backs of EVERYTHING, checking out ingredients, where its made, who the company is owned by etc etc. Shopping could take a really long time.

Last weekend  after a  shop at the local main competitor super market (that will see us through the week), groceries for 4 people, $150 dollars spent, only one item made out of Australia- toothbrushes were made in Singapore. Thats pretty good I thought.

So what is my point with all this? (bit tired today but I’m getting there…)

People have become completely removed from what they are buying. .

I don’t want to just buy my packaged meat, neatly cut up in stir fry pieces with no idea where it comes from. I don’t want my pears to come from China, when perfectly delicious ones are grown in Victoria. I don’t want my chocolate ingredients to come from 4 different parts of the world to be put together in a factory that is still on the other side of the world and then shipped to me and bought for $4.50 a block on the supermarket shelf (thats not good food miles!)

What I would like is for people to be a bit more questioning of what is actually in that jar of food they have just bought, question where the meat is from, is the dairy from free range cows, and does the supermarket offer a more locally produced chocolate product? If people even slightly changed their buying habits, super markets would follow suit and produce on the shelves what is selling the most. Look at how far fair trade coffee has come in recent years.

Its really easy to look at a shopping list and just go bang bang bang in the trolley and dashing out the checkout with not a clue of how many food miles you have just clocked up, and how many additives and preservatives you have just added. Every one does this as its easy! Its convenient. We all lead busy lives and at the end of the day when your knackered, the kids are whingey, you still have to make dinner and 50 other things to do after that, that you think “as quick as possible please”.

So, how to change current habits? Even if you started off small it would make a difference.

Animal Vegetable Miracle- a book that tells the story of how our family was changed by one year of deliberately eating food produced in the place where they lived. Loved it!