From The Czech Republic With Oxalis Tea

Talking Tea

On today's episode we have two guests speaking to us from Oxalis Tea and Coffee in the Czech Republic. First up is Petr Zelik, owner and founder of Oxalis. Petr chats with us about tea culture in the Czech Republic, and especially about the challenges and successes of building a tea company after the fall of Communism. We also explore Oxalis’ offerings of Korean teas, which are not easy to come by among quality tea offerings in the US.

Our second guest is Julian Overall, who coordinates Oxalis’s English-language social media flow. Julian's Twitter and Facebook feeds have become an invaluable source of news and connections for many of us in the tea world, and we talk with Julian about his views on the roles of social media and online information sharing for the tea community.

Here's a brief break-down of today's show, with time marks:

1:00 Petr's vision: starting a tea company in a nation without a tea culture; initial challenges

9:14 Success! The growth of Czech tea culture and the phenomeon of the Czech tea house, the "cajovna"

18:38 Green teas from Korea: unique taste characteristics

27:08 Connecting tea drinkers through social media, blogging and podcasting

You can find information about Oxalis' teas, as well as its comprehensive online catalogue, at its English language site, http://www.oxalis.cz/en. And you can follow Oxalis on Facebook under Oxalis Tea and Coffee, and on Twitter @julian_overall.

Oxalis' videos on tea can be accessed through the "Videos" tab on its Facebook page.

For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea.

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Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.

This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

Photo courtesy of Oxalis Tea And Coffee.