Karen Dunlap

Goat Cheese and Green Tea? Delicious, Says Karen Dunlap, the Expert Behind Union Square Cafe’s New Tea Service October 24, 2011 | By Cheryl Chan  

Oh, the dry, sweet taste that begs for tea. At one time, a mysterious, alien like dessert – that I have since come to love and crave. Especially when drinking Japanese teas. Many Americans, upon their first bite, get slightly freaked out. I tell you, this is an ancient candy made of all natural ingredients. [...]

I’m headed to Galicia, in the Northwest of Spain. Googling around to see if there might be teahouses to visit, I found this advice on Galicia Guide: If you like tea, bring your own. To make matters worse, even when you speak Spanish and order a tea at a bar, the staff struggle with the [...]

We are all searching for moments when time stops, opens up. When something deep inside, says hello. Fleeting moments, shy they seem, angels they are. Vanishing as soon as you recognize them. I drink tea because I love to lose myself in the moment. Poets, artists have long been inspired by this seductive nature of [...]

My friend Heather recently had surgery, and while recovering, rented tons of Pixar movies. Cartoons, she confesses, her indulgence. She asked what I would have watched. Looking around, I said softly, Masterpiece Theater with, ummm, a teapot of Lapsang Souchong. Have to tell you she looked horrified, she a film school graduate working on a [...]

Waking up to snow, the air is soft and still, delicate. I heat the water kettle, pull snow boots over my flannels and wrap around a scarf. The wind throws open the back door. I carefully walk, slide through the snow to the table, sit down, make tea, and listen to the sounds of the [...]

My friend Alex, founder of Product Perks, and I have been working on a tea quiz to help people explore different styles of tea and teaware. It’s posted up in the corner, and I invite you to take it for a spin. I’ll be adding more explanations and changing up the teas now and then.

I have a small group of friends in New York City that practice gungfu cha. ‘Gungfu’ literally means ‘hard to make’ and cha means ‘tea.’ It’s sometimes referred to as the Chinese Tea Ceremony and it’s a way of tasting tea leaves by making multiple infusions in a gaiwan or a yixing teapot. The more [...]

Hojicha is the underdog of Japanese teas. It will never be as beloved as sencha, matcha – or as rare as gyokuro. But, in time, it could take genmaicha. It’s not top shelf, but I have fallen in love with hojicha all the same. It wasn’t always like this, there were years when I turned [...]

He held out a lime and said “you can’t smell anything until you cut it open. The limes at home (Bangladesh), you can smell without cutting. Even the leaves.” In some sort of aha moment, I agreed, remembering how deeply satisfying it was to drink gyokuro in Japan. Could it be true? The further away [...]