Are you a gastronomic guru? A foodie of the first order? Or do you just love a creative challenge – along with your favorite Bigelow Tea? No matter how you describe yourself, the Bigelow Tea Recipe Contest is for you! Yep, we’re looking for the best and most original recipe using brewed Bigelow Tea. Submit your never-published recipe and photo (optional) on our Facebook page or our contest landing page here by October 30^th. The Grand Prize Winner will receive a year’s supply of Bigelow Tea and a personalized tea chest filled with … Bigelow Tea!

Once the entries are in, Bigelow Tea will pick 15 finalists.  Our tea-loving public and our guest judges will then vote for the Grand Prize Winner from November 7-November 18! So let us introduce our three fantastic guest judges who will be participating in the voting phase of the contest!

• Michelle Jaffee, a mother of three, baker and home cook, started Sweet and Simple baked goods in 2009.  Her dream was to share the universal pleasure of food and family baking traditions, through her business. The result has been a sweet success!

• Jackie Gordon is a singing chef, speaker, presenter, producer, songwriter and media spokesperson who promotes eating real food mindfully and in moderation. She blogs under The Diva That Ate New York, consults with food businesses, and owns Divalicious Chocolate! Events in NYC!

• Nicole J. Straight, an award-winning chef and founder of Time to Eat cooking school, recently published her second book, More Time to Eat! Delicious Recipes from a Busy Kitchen. She is passionate about helping people streamline food prep, and get dinner on the table in 15 minutes!

All three can’t wait to see the innovative Bigelow Tea recipes that our fans cook up! What a great chance to spread your culinary wings! Enter today!

Thanks to the judges for providing their own photos.

It is always great to see Bigelow Tea recognized in the press, but we were particularly pleased by this lovely profile of our own Cindi Bigelow in the latest edition of The Wag magazine! It truly captures the essence of both the woman and the company she views as part of her extended family.

And we were tickled by the article’s opening sentence: “If Cindi Bigelow were a kind of tea, she’d be the perfect blend of strong and soothing flavors.” We couldn’t agree more with that assessment!

Bigelow Tea, as you know, was formed more than 65 years ago by Ruth Campbell Bigelow, Cindi’s paternal grandmother,  and has grown into America’s number one producer of specialty teas!  Delicious and distinctive flavors that speak to the personali-TEA’s of all our valued Bigelow Tea customers!

Special thanks to everyone at The Wag for making our day!

When tennis pro Novak Djokovic discovered that he was allergic to gluten, he made the switch to a gluten-free diet and experienced something unexpected – his tennis game completely changed!  Without a moment’s hesitation, the 24 year old Serbian tennis player said goodbye to his favorite comfort foods like pizza, French bread, pretzels, pasta and beer. Now he attributes his recent weight loss and muscle strength – as well as a noticeable increase in energy and focus – to this radical change in his diet.  Thanks to detecting his intolerance to gluten – a protein composite found in grass-like grains wheat, barley, rye, and spelt – this tennis pro was able to press a virtual internal “reset” button!

And, as for his fans – they’re stunned by his transformation on court.  It’s been said that Djokovics’ once sloppy serve is now “precise, fluid and, at times, devastating!” His forehand and backhand also seem to have done a 180° turn, now being described as “hitting winners that seem to subscribe to undiscovered laws of physics…”[!]

We wrote that May, Gluten Free Awareness Month, was a great opportunity for people with gluten intolerance to carefully assess their food product sources and packaging.  It’s a full time job, and whether experiencing a simple allergy or suffering from Celiac disease, consumers can always look for products that have been certified “Gluten-free” which will bear this certification label:

With few exceptions, Bigelow® teas are naturally Gluten-free. To assist anyone with sensitivity to Gluten, Bigelow Tea clearly indicates “Gluten Free” or “Not Gluten Free” next to the ingredient statements on our website. In addition, we’ve put together quite a few sweet and savory Gluten-free recipes* for every palate, along with all of our outstanding teas. So do have a look-see!

*Note: The recipes designated Gluten free do not include the following ingrediets:  wheat, rye, barley, or oats; or ingredients that might contain these, but Bigelow Tea does not assume liability for information reported on our recipes.  However, anyone who needs or wants to follow a gluten free (GF) diet should check ingredients and products to ensure they are GF (for example, sesame seeds are naturally GF, but it’s always wise to check with the manufacturer to make sure that gluten was not introduced to the product during processing). Bigelow Tea makes no guarantees that the recipes are appropriate for your diet.  Individuals should consult with their physician or other medical professional.

Images via Online.wsj.com and Gluten.net

Nothing says spring like the First Flush FesTEAval at the Charleston Tea Plantation, continental America’s only working tea garden! Bigelow Tea is thrilled to announce that Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, an awesome blues-rock band, will headline the 5^th annual FesTEAval on Sunday May 15^th. It’s the perfect opportunity to bring the whole family to picturesque Wadmalaw Island for a unique celebration of seasonal renewal and, of course, tea! By the way, we served more than 7,000 cups of iced American Classic Tea at last year’s event, which drew over 5,000 attendees!

2010 First Flush FesTEAval

Even if you don’t live in South Carolina, our FesTEAval is worth the trip to historic Charleston, especially if you love tea and are interested in how it’s made. Check out Cindi Bigelow’s informative video tour of the Charleston Tea Plantation to get a better idea of what makes it such a special place:

First Flush tea, made from the new leaves of tea plants as they emerge from dormancy every spring is an extra-special brew. In fact, it was once reserved only for royalty! Today, First Flush tea is anxiously awaited by connoisseurs who deem it to be the purest, freshest tea.

And thanks to the FesTEAval, the Charleston Tea Plantation is known as a top destination for the best in live music, entertainment and local cuisine, as well as the tea! The Bridge at 105.5, a local radio station and key sponsor of the FesTEAval, is once again booking a lineup of hot bands. “This station event combines a great location with talent that has gotten better every year,” said The Bridge Operations Manager Mike Allen. “The show has become our most anticipated event!”

So, come join us on May 15^th – advance tickets are available through Etix – and we’ll have the tea pitchers iced, the acoustics set and the fun all fired up!

Three cheers for Mom! We love her and rely on her all year long, but once a year, on Mother’s Day, we get to give her some extra, well-deserved attention. You can imagine that Mother’s Day is one of our favorite days of the year. Not only does it typically involve breakfast in bed or brunch with tea, but it also celebrates the women of the family … and Bigelow Tea has so many women to celebrate! From the mothers in the Bigelow family to our many dedicated employees with families, Bigelow Tea is so very fortunate to have scores of fabulous mothers in our corner!

At this time of year we can’t pass up the opportunity to talk about one of the fabulous Bigelow tea mothers, the one who started it all back in 1945: Ruth Campbell Bigelow. Her son, David C. Bigelow knew how to share the story of his Mother—he wrote a book about her! My Mother Loved Tea is a great read, and it’s best enjoyed with a cup of Constant Comment!

My Mother Loved Tea, by David C. Bigelow

One other reason we love Mother’s Day?  It gives children (grown and little) the opportunity to give Mom a thoughtful, inexpensive gift … and tea fits the bill. A single pink packet of English Breakfast Tea wrapped by a child or taped into a card will make Mom’s eyes water, and a box or two of her favorite blends will truly make her day.

One “fantasy” mother’s day gift? Besides a selection of hugs and thanks, maybe a collection of green tea! That way, each morning when Mom makes her healthy, hot tea, she’ll think of her family and how much they care about her. Awwwwww.

Happy Mother’s Day, ladies! May it be full of love, laughter and tea!

Our March Bigelow Tea Sweepstakes has ended so thank you to everyone who entered! One lucky winner, Jennifer from Texas, will receive a $200 Bigelow Tea gift certificate good for shopping from our catalog or website and an additional five (5) winners, Cheryl from Louisiana, Dianne from Alabama, Darlene from Ontario Canada, Eric from Virginia, and Iliana from New York, will each receive a $75 Bigelow Tea gift certificate!

Congratulations to the winners and thanks again to everyone who entered!

It seems that tea lovers really like to speak their minds! Bigelow Tea is thrilled that during February we heard from so many of you through Twitter and Facebook. Our communication channels were packed with great feedback from our tweeps and Friends, and we can’t thank you enough!

On Twitter lots of people were tweeting about their favorite teas. For starters, @AliBabaAuctions let us know that he likes to start the day with Bigelow Earl Grey Tea “with honey and half-and-half.” Sounds good to us! Similarly @WebThingy told us that his “fav tea (I drink it 2x a day at least) is Green Tea w/ Pomegranate.” And @reddpups tweeted that she was “lovin the Chamomile Mango tea right now.” Thanks for letting us know!

Finally, @colinmorris made us chuckle with this one: “Oh, thank god. @BigelowTea has a @Twitter account. Now I can tell them every time I’m brewing their lifesaving chai. (I annoy even myself.)”

Our Facebook page was really hopping too! So many of you posted updates on our page, and we got literally hundreds of responses to some of the questions we posed last month! More than 100 of you responded to one question alone: when we asked if it was possible people were drinking iced tea in February! The answer? A resounding yes! All of this great back-and-forth communication is truly remarkable … and it actually caught the attention of Chris Brogan, a social media consultant to Fortune 500 companies, who put Bigelow Tea’s Facebook page on his list of “Compelling Facebook Fan Pages!”

Way to go, tea drinkers! Thanks for making your voices heard and for letting us know what you like and how you like it. We can’t wait to hear more from you next month!

Image by netzanette via flickr.com

Here at Bigelow Tea we simply can’t get enough of our interactions with tea lovers from all over the world! Our Facebook page has been a whirlwind of activity lately, and your tweets on Twitter keep coming in too! We’re planning a blog post each month to thank those of you who have reached out to us. Last month we looked at the comments and updates on our Facebook page, and so this month, it’s our tweeps we’d like to thank!

This past month, our Twitter followers have had a lot to say, and minty flavors were a hot topic. Our Plantation Mint got kudos from @Justhike and @paintedladies09, and our Peppermint Herb Tea was said to be “intoxicating” by @Mieschi.  How true!

Meanwhile @dianapackech tweeted that she likes our Chamomile Mint Herb Tea in the evenings to induce “sweet dreams” — which is not to be confused with our actual Sweet Dreams Herb Tea.  (And for all you mint lovers … did you hear that Plantation Mint was just selected the best Black Herb tea by Everyday with Rachael Ray?)

In January we also got lots of love for several more of our popular Bigelow Teas. Our Eggnogg’n Tea was praised by @LaurieSkare, our Earl Grey got kudos from @drduran, and our Vanilla Caramel was a favorite of @LCurtoxox. (And then there’s our tweep, @hjs799, who apparently adores ‘em all!)

We’d also like to thank @susano843 for letting us know how much she enjoys taking out of town guests to our Charleston Tea Plantation! Thanks, Susan! We’re so glad you are fond of visiting America’s only working tea plantation.

Enjoy your winter, friends! We look forward to hearing much more from each of you all winter long! Take care, stay warm, and enjoy your Bigelow Tea time!

Photo by Naama via Flickr.com

Each February we look at the African-Americans who have shaped life in the United States, as part of Black History Month. From Harriet Tubman to Barak Obama, our country has moved forward, thanks to these civil rights leaders, musicians, poets, athletes and educators. Here are just a few who have made a great impact:

Rosa Parks (above) was a seamstress who refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. Through that action a movement was ignited, and Rosa Parks is still recalled as “the mother of the civil rights movement.”

Frederick Douglass was born a slave. Against the laws of the time, he learned to read and write, eventually publishing his autobiography and becoming an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln. He said: “I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.”

Maya Angelou is one of America’s most respected authors and poets. Her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is a milestone of African-American literature. At the 1993 inauguration of Bill Clinton, Ms. Angelou recited an inaugural poem, “On the Pulse of Morning,” the second poet ever to read at an inauguration.

Jackie Robinson was the first African-American to play Major League Baseball for a non-segregated team, and to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Jackie Robinson’s quiet dignity paved the way for the integration of MLB, even while suffering mistreatment from ballplayers and fans alike.

Bigelow Tea salutes these pioneers during Black History Month and encourages everyone to brew a cup of tea and learn more about these influential men and women who have helped make America a better place for all people.

Image via, commons.wikimedia.org

Can you imagine our excitement here at Bigelow Tea when we received word from Everyday with Rachael Ray Magazine that one of our teas had won first place in a Black Tea Taste Test?! Yes, it’s true, we were recently informed that in the February issue of Ms. Ray’s delectable magazine our very own Plantation Mint Tea would be featured as the BEST in the “black tea with HERB” category!

Here’s a preview of what Everyday with Rachael Ray Magazine says about our fantastic Plantation Mint:

Since its introduction half a century ago, this blend has amassed a loyal following—and it won over our judges too.
Black tea adds depth (plus caffeine) to sweet, invigorating spearmint leaves.
“This would be the ultimate morning pick-me-up!” one taster exclaimed. Another noted that it’d be delicious served iced.

Plantation Mint was developed by Eunice Bigleow and introduced in 1961. It continues to be a consumer favorite, ranking in sales among our top three flavored black teas. We love it whether it’s hot and soothing, iced and refreshing or in one of our favorite recipes like Bigelow Frozen Iced Tea!

We hope you’ll all grab a copy and give it a read … and maybe sip some Plantation Mint tea while you’re perusing its pages! Thanks, Rachael, for recognizing our tea. We love you too!