Meet Etsy Tea Artist: TeaNoir

Kate is a "recent transplant to Vermont, migrating up from southern New York." She admits she is "extraordinarily caffeinated and sort of obsessed with flavours and cooking - I daydream about different taste combinations and things I can do with tea. It's probably just a wee bit unhealthy, really!" As with her MarTeani blend (pictured), she gets a lot of inspiration from classic cocktails. She also pulls ideas from candy and baked goods. "I love experimenting with flavours to come up with something new and different. I also get inspiration from the names of my favourite noir movies - Maltese Falcon started out with the name, and I challenged myself to come up with a tea that involved black and gold." Just like Kate, TeaNoir is "all about mixing retro and modern. It's all about modernising the ancient flavour of tea, and the retro associations tea often has. English Breakfast is all well and good, but there's so much more that can be done. Tea doesn't need to be stodgy, and there's no reason having a cup of tea can't be as fun as having a triple-mocha-iced-frappa-whatever from the coffee bar." She's been blending her own teas for five years - and selling them with great success for two. "I definitely spend 40+ hours a week with Tea Noir, between blending, listing, keeping up on email, etc., but it's not my day job," she explains, however she hopes to turn it into one. For now, her goal with Etsy is to "keep my customers happy and to make enough sales to allow me to turn around and buy lots of nifty stuff from other Etsians." Her success is due mostly to the quality of her ingredients - and the diligence she spends on the details. "If you have a quality product, it'll speak for itself." Please check out her shop: http://teanoir.etsy.com/

-Wendy Baylis

Dharma Designs

http://dharmadesigns.etsy.com/