Win a Sweaty Betty gift voucher and a Lahloo Herbal Therapy set

Sweaty Betty’s new collection motto ‘Fit is the new it’ is the perfect match to our Herbal Therapy month! Sweaty Betty Bristol has offered us a £40 gift voucher to give to one of you Lahloo friends. With over 30 stores nationwide and the aim to inspire women to find empowerment through fitness, Sweaty Betty provides stylish yet performance-lead activewear for women who live an active lifestyle. Sweaty Betty Bristol members also enjoy free weekly clubs: Metabolic Conditioning workout on Mondays, Intermediate run on Tuesdays and Yoga on Wednesdays! (For more info you can e-mail BristolShop@sweatybetty.com).

Sweaty Betty’s new collection’s motto ‘Fit is the new it’ is the perfect match to our Herbal Therapy month!

The winner of the competition will also receive a special Lahloo Herbal Therapy gift box, including our caffeine-free infusions Rosebud, Mulberry, Sobacha, Peppermint and Golden Rooibos.

To enter the competition, you just have to answer the following question in the form below and submit it: what do you do to stay fit? 

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED.

Terms and conditions

1. This competition is open to residents of the UK, 18 years or over, with the exception of employees of Lahloo Tea and Sweaty Betty and their families or partners.

2. All entries must be received by midnight on Sunday the 3th of February 2013.

3. Only one entry per person. The winner will be drawn at random from all entries received by the closing date.

4. By entering this competition you agree to have your name released as the winner. The winner will be contacted through e-mail or telephone after the 4th of February.

5. If the prize winner fails to respond to correspondence from Lahloo Tea or to claim his/her prize within 72 hours of receipt of notification, Lahloo Tea shall be entitled to select an alternative prize winner. The prize winner who has not responded won’t be entitled to a prize.

6. Prize is non transferable and there are no cash alternatives.

7. Lahloo Tea reserves the right to record the entrants’s e-mail addresses for promotional purposes and to share these with Sweaty Betty.

Keep healthy this winter – a guest post by Rebecca Irwin

It’s been the wettest summer in a hundred years, and we’re hoping for an Indian summer before the days get much shorter and the temperatures colder… It’s time to enjoy the last days of summer before we enter the cold season! But if you’re feeling as if the winter is like a guest who arrives a bit too early to your dinner party, don’t fret! We’ve asked nutritionist Rebecca Irwin, from Neal’s Yard Remedies Bristol for some advice on how to start getting ready – and there’s some good news for green tea lovers too! 

As with all year round, it’s vitally important to keep up a good intake of nourishing wholesome foods. Having plenty of different coloured veggies will provide a spectrum of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients to support the immune system. Avoid sugar and junk foods, they only place more stress on the body.

To combat the cold and damp it’s great to eat more warming and drying foods which means vegetables, grains and lots of warming spices such as cinnamon, turmeric and ginger. These spices often have an anti-microbial effect so they’re fantastic for fighting any infection.

Think cinnamon and grated apple porridge, hearty soups, stews, curries and casseroles, and lots of warm drinks (tea!!) to keep your body well. Green tea in particular has been the subject of some very positive research in regards to immunity.

Regular exercise is as important as ever, even a brisk walk in the winter sunshine will do your circulation a world of good, and classes such as yoga or pilates provide a more meditative aspect to help deal with stress.

It may be useful to take a multi-vitamin and mineral over the winter months, that includes vitamins C and D, zinc and selenium which have all been shown to support immunity.

There are plenty of natural medicines to take should any coldy symptoms arise, one of the fastest-acting being elderberry – a powerful anti-viral agent. Speak to a professional for tailored advice!

 

Rebecca can be found at Neal’s Yard Remedies in Bristol.

Browse our green teas here! 

Tea-cycling tips to celebrate Bristol’s Big Green Week

On Saturday the 9th Lahloo Pantry will be on Corn Street for Bristol’s Big Green Week. All around St. Nicholas’ Market you’ll find the most inspiring and exciting independent businesses from the South West! There’ll be plenty of things to do, so come and say hello to the Pantry team if you’re around.

To celebrate Bristol’s Big Green week here are our favourite tea-cycling tips! 

1. Loose tea is greener: 

Brits consume 165 million cups of tea every day, according to The Guardian. Although teabags can be composted, some of them are partly made of a nasty-sounding material called polypropylene, which isn’t fully bio-degradable. Some teabags have staples that aren’t bio-degradable or environmentally-friendly either.

Drinking loose tea generates less waste, plus you can reinfuse your leaves up to 6 or 7 times depending on the type of tea! (Check our website if in doubt!). Each reinfusion will taste diferently to the previous one, and observing the subtle changes is a wonderful way of exploring tea.

2. Reinvent your old China:

- Use old cups and saucers to plant fresh culinary herbs and put them on your windowsill. Basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano or sage are always essential!

-Use teacups and saucers as a centrepiece, to display fresh flowers. They create a unique, vintage and very British touch.

Flowers in teacups by Flowers for Eddie at Lahloo Pantry

3. Re-imagine your old tea tins: 

 Use old tea tins to make candles, as planters or to display your flowers.

More display ideas by Flowers for Eddie 

A Tea Workshop for chocoholics

If you’re crazy about chocolate, you can’t miss our next Tea Workshop on Thursday the 26th of April! The food of the gods has been the inspiring force behind this month’s selection. Discover which tea enhances the flavour of dark chocolate, which has notes of cocoa nibs or which is perfect to use as an ingredient in a chocolate tart.

Founder Kate will guide you during the tea tasting, showing you the story behind our teas, their health benefits and how to pair them with food.

As usual, tickets are £15 but they’re 100% redeemable, so at the end of the workshop you’ll be able to choose your favourites and take them home to recreate the experience!

To book your place, call Lahloo Pantry on 0117 329 2029 or e-mail hello@lahloopantry.co.uk.

Tea and romance at Lahloo Pantry

Remember that scene from Atonement when Robbie and Cecilia meet for the first time after his imprisonment and hold hands over a cup of tea? Or that other one from Brief Encounter, when Laura and Alec share their first cup of tea together? If you like romance (and who doesn’t?!) you’ll agree with us: there’s something charming, comforting and, well, romantic, about sharing a cup of tea with your loved one. 

So we’ve got the Pantry set up for you (beautiful flowers, great tunes) and we’re doing a special night, with BYO and late opening until 7pm, on Valentine’s Day. You can drink your favourite tea and indulge in this delicious afternoon tea menu: 

-Champagne and pomegranate turkish delight,
-Mini meringue roulade with pistachio and rosewater, 
-Custard kiss, 
-Macaron, 
-Scone with clotted cream and strawberry and vanilla jam, 
-Chard, bacon and brie minimuffin, 
-Smoked salmon and beetroot creme fraiche on soda bread
-Quail’s eggs, cress and tea smoked salt on soda bread

To book your Valentine’s afternoon tea, e-mail hello@lahloopantry.co.uk or call 0117 329 20 29. 

Join us on our first Tea Workshop of the year!

Write this date in your diaries: Thursday the 19th of January, 6-8pm at Lahloo Pantry in Clifton! We’ll be hosting our first Tea Workshop of the year!

Taste our selection of teas: this month you’ll discover our most rejuvenating and purifying teas, the healthiest -perfect for a fresh new start!

Learn about the story behind them: type, origin, process, how to pair them with food and health benefits.

Take home your favourites! Tickets are 100% redeemable so you can go back home with a bag of goodies!

Tickets cost £15 and places are limited, so book fast! E-mail hello@lahloopantry.co.uk or give us a call on 0117 329 2029.

Sssh…here’s a sneak preview of our new store frontage!

Unbelievably, it’s just under 3 weeks to go until we open the doors to our very unique tea rooms and store In Clifton Village, Bristol. Here’s our first image of what our store front will look like. It’s great to see Kate’s dreams coming to life. There’s still a lot to do but the builders assure Kate that they are right on track for us to open on Friday 7th October!

Very very exciting indeed!

PS don’t forget to enter our WIN TEA FOR A YEAR COMPETITION HERE

Ssshh…Lahloo news

Hello!

So do you like our new logo? I hope you’re well and that you enjoyed a lovely summer. I’d like to thank you for your continued support of Lahloo Tea and for really getting behind what I have been trying to achieve. It makes a real difference to us to have such wonderfully supportive customers.

We’ve had a busy summer working on some very exciting developments here at Lahloo. This is your sneak preview of everything we’ve been beavering away on over the summer! Lucky people!

I remember September as a little girl. Lots of excitement because I got to choose new shoes (every girls dream)! Well, this September I feel strangely similar. But instead of new shoes for me, this year it’s a new look, fresh feel and even a new home for Lahloo!

This is 12 Kings Road, Clifton, Bristol - Lahloo’s new home.  From the beginning of October (if those builders get cracking) we will be moving from our base in central Bristol to our first Lahloo concept tea store in Bristol’s beautiful Clifton village.  The Lahloo Pantry is a huge, and very exciting, step for us and one I see as a real opportunity to bring the true artisanal side of Lahloo to life.

We have some really exciting new teas, producers and tea ware coming your way. This is one of our new producers – the oldest tea farmer in the world – 111 year old Arthur Njuguna Komo! If the tea is behind his youthful looks, I’m making it my daily cuppa!

Just think of us as the same old Lahloo just a little bit better! It’s like starting a new school; so exciting but also a little bit scary! I hope that you will follow our progress here and like the results of our labour when we’re done!

Thanks again and keep drinking Lahloo Tea,

Kate x  x (Lahloo founder)

Fancy a new job where drinking lots of tea is a prerequisite?

That got your attention! Well, we are recruiting. Come and join the good ship Lahloo!

As you may have seen in our latest blogs, newsletters and tweets, we are opening our very first tea store here in Bristol in October this year (2011). The Lahloo Pantry is a huge but very exciting step for us. And to help us make it a roaring success we are looking for fabulous people with a love of food retail and hospitality and a real understanding of exceptional customer service to join us.

If that’s you, email Kate by September 19th and tell her why you would like to join the team. Tell her what experience you have and also what you think you could bring to the team. We like to have fun and of course drink lots of tea but most of all we love sharing our infectious passion for amazing tea with everyone out there.

We have different positions available, both full-time and part-time, and in all sorts of areas. So if you think you’d make a cracking store manager, supervisor or indeed the best infusionist in the land (well, we don’t need baristas we do need people who will learn how to serve the finest cup of tea in Bristol), then please don’t delay.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Wow! Gorilla Maddness!

Kate makes friends!

Walking around Bristol over the past week or so I’ve been spotting more and more Gorillas! That’s right! You weren’t mistaken, not squirrels, foxes or hedgehogs – huge gorillas!

They’re not real of course but they do make a very striking feature on the landscape and if you see one with bleary Monday morning eyes you do have to do a double check! They’re part of a mass public art exhibition organised by Bristol Zoo to celebrate their 175th Birthday (making it the longest running zoo outside of a capital city). What a lovely gift to the city, thank you Bristol Zoo!

Not only do they brighten up our city, (and lets face it a wee bit of colour always goes down well on an urban landscape), they’re also here to make a serious point too. Their aim is to raise awareness of the threats facing gorillas and other apes around the world. We think this is a great way to do this! They’re all over Bristol in various nooks and crannies in a bid to celebrate the zoo’s 175th Birthday in a fun and educational way.

They began life as white human height sculptures but once local artists,community groups and schools got hold of them they soon cheered up and have formed part of a city-wide art extravaganza! They’ll be hanging around (excuse the pun!) all over Summer after arriving on a Gorilla Flotilla sailed in by Bristol ferry Company on the 4th July. Now that’s a heck of a great way to make an entrance! We like their style! Eventually they will be sold off to raise funds for Gorilla conservation. I quite fancy a gorilla in my garden!

We’re off this weekend to hunt out as many as we can find. We’ll be stopping off for plenty of Lahloo tea stops along the way, on our Gorilla mission! Yip-pee!! Send us your photo’s of you and your Gorilla friends if (like us) you’re a big kid who likes to be silly!

A huge well done Bristol Zoo and Happy 175th Birthday from Lahloo Tea!