"I realized that tea does not even have taste
but rather just an effect like the wind"
James Norwood Pratt

An Exclusive Interview with Ann Rosenfeld Editor of TEAHOUSE Magazine by Jennifer Geronaitis

1) Do you recall your first experience sipping true tea?

A: It was probably a mug of Constant Comment, either made at home or ordered in a restaurant, certainly made from a teabag... I thought, in my youth, that that was High Class Stuff. My folks drank only strong black coffee, so I learned about tea on my own -- I think I really did "follow my nose," and it led me to tea. For many years I drank only herbal infusions, and I still drink them a lot. Caffeine and I aren't very good friends...

2) What was it about tea that urged you to learn more?

A: I am a curious person by nature, and an avid collector. If I follow the path to one area of interest, it tends to lead me to several other paths. As a food historian, I follow a lot of paths -- honey, almonds, sweet potatoes, tea... In the case of tea, there are so many wonderful variants, so the collector in me has a lot to explore. Tea is intoxicating, it's consumable scent; it's also an array of tremendously important agricultural products, intertwined with the lives of those who produce the products. I look at it from all sides, want to share information about all sides.

3) Your magazine is very unique and fresh. The writing in my opinion has soul. Who is your audience and what kind of feedback are you getting?

A: Well, thank you for that! I write about what I believe in, and I invite the work of contributors who do the same -- so far the response, especially from people in the tea trade, has been very, very positive. I feel blessed. People are going out of their way to say nice things, to offer support (as you have done!), and to tell other people to have a look at the mag. Even when I had to take several months off right at the beginning, before really getting established, there were many who kept sending messages of encouragement. There are people who tell me that they like my approach, like what I have planned for the magazine, and this is the greatest affirmation possible.

This will sound trite, but I am my audience, first and foremost. TEAHOUSE will always be a collection of what interests me from around the tea world. If it also interests other people, that's even better. Readers who like variety, and who want their tea information put into a context, will (I hope) enjoy the magazine. I'm in northern California, and have spent time in Japan, so it's no accident that TEAHOUSE will look at the west coast, and toward Asia, for a lot of material. There are established tea publications out there emphasizing some of the areas that I don't plan to emphasize, such as Victorian English-style tea-taking; each of us has a very different approach, a different presentation. There's room for us all, and I like that.

4) In the past I have praised your content and writing and warned readers not to "judge a book by its cover. I did this because I thought there might be people who see the value of a Magazine as merely the paper its printed on...which at this time is recycled paper. When many people here the word " magazine" they think of high gloss, slick works of art in its own right.

Do you have plans to upgrade paper quality, draw on your background in layout and photography someday or or are you hoping to re-define the world's view of what a magazine is?

A: Actually, the first issue is printed on a very good quality paper -- as a veteran of the printing business, I am an admitted paper snob! I happen to prefer uncoated paper, especially since it is much easier on the environment. More publications are switching to uncoated papers all the time, even for color printing, and that's the road I'm taking, too. There isn't much on the magazine that I don't do right now -- design, layout, lots of writing and copyediting (hence a smattering of typos!)... I'll be pulling out my cameras, too, so you'll see more photos very soon. There are also some fantastic illustrators whose work will be popping up in TEAHOUSE, including Jefferson Ballew, who designed the steaming teabowl in our logo.

Now, I could go on for hours about the amazing variety of magazines in the world today, but I'll spare you (if anyone wants to talk about that, they are welcome to contact me) -- I'm not doing anything revolutionary, at least I never set out to. I work within my budget and produce the best publication I can, visually, environmentally, and, of course, editorially. I'll always have a lot to learn, but hopefully I'll get to learn different things at every stage. More people will be coming on board to help me take the mag where I want it to go, so you'll see refinements and improvements as we go along. I love the production side, so I won't ever want to hand all of it off to someone else. It's a fun challenge.

5) Why did you choose producing a magazine over a newsletter or a book?

A: Well, a lot of people do refer to TEAHOUSE as a newsletter! I'm hoping to attract a nice cadre of advertisers, partly because advertising revenue will keep me in business, but also -- more importantly -- because there are many smaller companies who have some cool products that they want to show off, and readers want to see these things. Advertising is not automatically evil -- it's another type of informative content. That being said, I don't want to run ads from companies who knowingly cause hardships for their workers or for the planet... this is another part of the education that I get while producing the mag.

I think of TEAHOUSE as a magazine because it has ads in it, and because it goes out to a wide audience -- my readers share an interest in tea, but but beyond that they differ widely: some are in the tea biz, some are new to tea and want to learn what it's about, some have been drinking tea their whole lives but never tire of reading One More Thing about it. TEAHOUSE readers come in many shapes and sizes...

I have published food-related books in the past, and hope to do many more books, but when I sat down and seriously thought about tea information and how to put it together in a useful way, a quarterly magazine seemed like the best fit. Books capture a set of thoughts and info at a given moment; it's costly and difficult to update a book. I want the mag to reflect what's going on NOW in and around tea -- start from right here and go forward. I really love the magazine format, it just makes sense to me, I suppose it appeals to the collector in me. Any aspect that I want to cover on a regular basis, I just create a department for it. If I want to tie stories together by themes, it's easy to do. Magazines develop into communities, really, and the best ones have a lot of interaction among readers and producers. I hope TEAHOUSE will develop like that.

6) On a personal note what parts of TEAHOUSE reflect your personality?

A: If there is anything that DOESN'T reflect my personality in the mag, I'm doing something very wrong! I get silly a lot, so does the magazine. I like music and art, so we have a lot of that. If it ever turns into something that doesn't look like I could have made it, it won't be TEAHOUSE anymore.

7) What are your hobbies?

A: Oh, I have many hobbies, many collections...

8) What other interests do you have besides tea?

A: Opera, Irish set dancing, designing movable book structures... the whole list is too long to fit here, I assure you.

TEAHOUSE Magazine: Where Life is Infused with Tea
P.O. Box 1135, Pinole CA 94564-1135
510-724-2622; beegirl@earthlink.net
soon to be online at www.teahousemag.com

Ann Rosenfeld is editrix and publisher of TEAHOUSE. Her academic and professional background includes more than 25 years in the graphic arts with emphases in design, printing, and photography. Ann has been publishing books and sidelines for more than a decade; she also has extensive experience producing catalogs and newsletters for corporate and nonprofit clients. Ann earned a unique Bachelor of Arts degree from Mills College in the creation and production of food-related literature.

The debut of TEAHOUSE takes Ann in an exciting new direction, bringing together her years of production experience with her abiding fondness for everything in and around tea. In TEAHOUSE, she presents pertinent information with a playful attitude that appeals to seasoned aficionados as well as neophytes - the magazine encompasses all manner of tea-friendly subject matter from music, literature, and visual arts to shopping, dining, and celebrating.

"Tea has been an influential part of my life for so many years. In my teens, I learned the uses of healing herbs and began to drink herbal infusions which I enjoy still. In my twenties I spent a year in Japan, where I enjoyed green, oolong, and grain teas. Back in San Francisco, I studied chanoyu with Christy Bartlett and Larry Tiscornia at the Urasenke Foundation. More recently, I researched tea preparation customs for writer and Chez Panisse tea sommelier Helen Gustafson... Through it all, I have continued to mix and enjoy my own tea and herb blends as well as tasting nearly everything that comes my way. There seems to be no outer limit to the universe of tea."

TEAHOUSE Magazine: Where Life is Infused with Tea
P.O. Box 1135, Pinole CA 94564-1135
510-724-2622; beegirl@earthlink.net
soon to be online at www.teahousemag.com