Jef Stott brings worldly sounds to Samovar during Sunday Brunch.

Join us for a special brunch this coming Sunday at Samovar Yerba Buena as we welcome the deep and spirited sounds of Six Degrees recording artist Jef Stott.

Jef Stott has consistently been at the forefront of the International Global Electronica movement for over a decade as a composer/performer and DJ.  His DJ sets stylistically span the globe with sonorities from Arabia, Africa, South Asia and Northern Africa.

Stott will have with him an arabic stringed instrument called an oud(pron.ood) which he will play while mixing sounds of his own, and fellow six degrees artists’.

It will be a fantastic afternoon of live music, amazing teas, and delicious Samovar brunch!

Details:
Sunday Brunch with Six Degrees recording artist Jef Stott
When: Sunday, October 25, 2009
Time: live music 1 pm – 3 pm.  Brunch all Day.
Where: Samovar’s Yerba Buena location
730 Howard Street (between 3rd and 4th Streets)?San Francisco, CA 94103
Phone: (415) 227-9400

In celebration of fair trade month

Please join the Samovar Team, and several game-changing Fair Trade folks, for a fun and informative Q&A. Speakers will represent all facets of the Fair Trade movement from suppliers, to certifiers, to retailers, and farmers.

The following companies will offer samples of their exceptional fair trade products: Alter Eco Olive Oil, Frontier Herbs and Spices, La Yapa Quinoa, Tcho Chocolate, Swoonbeams Chocolate, and others. The Fair Trade Gala marks the launch of Samovar’s line of Fair Trade Teas. Tastings of our latest line will be available as well as other Samovar favorites. Sweet and savory snacks will also be provided.

Speakers include executives from the Fair Trade Certifying organization TransFair, amongst other trailblazers in the Fair Trade movement.

Tickets are $10. Pre-order tickets are available for purchase from Samovar’s Yerba Buena location (415-227-9400).

Details:
The Fair Trade Gala
When: Thursday, October 29, 2009
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Where: Samovar’s Yerba Buena location
730 Howard Street (between 3rd and 4th Streets)?San Francisco, CA 94103
Phone: (415) 227-9400
Cost: $10.

Fair Trade Month Official Website: http://www.fairtrademonth.org

Joanne Jorissen and new life

Samovar Tea Lounge Zen Valley will host an evening of African tea and a discussion with Joanne Jorissen, a midwife in Africa and founder of African Mothers Health Initiative.

An award-winning short documentary on her work in Malawi, Africa will be shown, and you will have an opportunity to try some rare handcrafted African teas (voluntary donations for tea will go to Joanne’s organization, African Mothers’ Health Initiative).

You are welcome to have dinner while listening to Joanne speak of her travels, work, and commitment to change through the African Mothers’ Health Initiative.  If you can’t make the event, please visit her website: http://www.africanmothers.org

Details:
When: Monday, October 19, 2009
Time: 7-9 p.m.
Cost: Free
Where: Samovar Tea Lounge Zen Valley
297 Page Street @ Laguna
San Francisco
Phone: (415) 861-0303

The event is open to the public and free of charge.

When: Friday, October 9, 2009,  3:00 – 5:00 pm

Where: Samovar Tea Lounge (Zen Valley location)

297 Page Street (@ Laguna Street)
San Francisco,CA 94102
Phone: (415) 861-0303

Admission: Free!

Every single weekday:

10am-1pm

Enjoy our lunch special for $10. Tax included!

Fill your belly and sooth your soul with: soup, salad, 1/2 sandwich (grilled tofu, or turkey) and, of course…tea (Ryokucha green tea, Earl Grey black tea or Ocean of Wisdom herbal infusion)! That’s the Samovar Lunch Special.

Down with the slumping economy and up with tea!

Human Potential in the New Economy

How can you accomplish more by doing less? Adaptability, mindfulness, calming down, and doing less.  These are the hallmarks of working to your full potential according to Author, Zen Priest, and Life Coach Marc Lesser and Executive Leadership Coach Pam Weiss. Join two of our community’s great consultants and life coaches who can help you gain leverage from the inside out as you work toward fulfilling your dreams in this unique economic era.

Featuring Marc Lesser (Author of Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less) & Pam Weiss (Executive Coach)

About Marc Lesser:
Zen priest and business consultant, Marc Lesser, is the author of the new book, Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less. Marc has been practicing and studying Zen for 30 years and is a Zen teacher in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi.  He also has an MBS degree from NYU’s Graduate School of Business and has been a highly regarded consultant to executives in various industries.

About Pam Weiss:
Pam Weiss has been practicing Buddhism since 1987, including several years of Zen monastic training. She is currently in teacher-training with Jack Kornfield, and is also a student of the Diamond Approach. Pam is an executive coach who offers mindfulness classes and leadership development programs inside various organizations. Her passion is in bringing the richness and depth of Buddhist teachings to the world of work and relationships, as well as articulating a feminine expression of the dharma.

About the Samovar Tea Salon Series “Coping With The New Economy”
Samovar Tea Salon Series invites a small audience to an intimate, open-dialogue forum meant to inspire and energize the community to respond mindfully and optimistically to a rapidly changing social and economic era. Tea Salons will be held bi-weekly on Tuesday evenings at Samovar’s new “Zen Valley” location (297 Page @ Laguna).

These Tea Salons bring together some of the finest Bay Area minds in finance, spirituality, technology, entrepreneurialism, self help and the environment in an interview/forum format, moderated by Samovar owner Jesse Jacobs and events associate Jennifer Sauer (Author of The Way to Tea: Your Adventure Guide to San Francisco Tea Culture).

Details
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
7-8:30 p.m. (Come early for dinner!)
Samovar Tea Lounge Zen Valley
297 Page Street (@ Laguna Street)
San Francisco, CA 94102
Phone: (415) 861-0303

Tickets are limited to 22 people per event. Samovar Tea Lounge will serve fine premium teas equally valued at the cost of admission ($12) at the start of each event. Dining is available from 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm prior to the forum. Discount tickets are also available: two people for $20 (single event), or three tickets (three individual events) for $30.

All Tea Salons will be held from 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm, and tickets are available for purchase at Samovar’s Zen Valley location.

Samovar Tuesday Tea Salon

The Meaning of Money in the New Economy

How will the value of money change in the coming months and years, and how can you best manage your own money as dollars come and go, rise and fall, with the shifting economic climate? Come sip premium tea with John Marshall, who will help you decipher the best ways to respond to the changing financial picture in the U.S.

Featuring John Marshall-Stella, Principle of Stella Capital and  Moderator James Norwood Pratt

About James Norwood Pratt:
James Norwood Pratt is an author and authority on wine, tea and tea lore. He is best known for his books on tea “The Tea Lover’s Treasury” (1982), “The Tea Lover’s Companion” (1995), and the whimsical “Reading Tea Leaves” (1996) authored as “by a Highland Seer.” In 2000 he brought out “James Norwood Pratt’s NEW Tea Lover’s Treasury,” a complete re-casting of his earlier work in the light of increased information. This book has been translated into German with the title “Tee fur Geniesse” and is often used as a training manual in the US tea trade.

About the Samovar Tea Salon Series “Coping With The New Economy”
Samovar Tea Salon Series invites a small audience to an intimate, open-dialogue forum meant to inspire and energize the community to respond mindfully and optimistically to a rapidly changing social and economic era. Tea Salons will be held bi-weekly on Tuesday evenings at Samovar’s new “Zen Valley” location (297 Page @ Laguna).

These Tea Salons bring together some of the finest Bay Area minds in finance, spirituality, technology, entrepreneurialism, self help and the environment in an interview/forum format, moderated by Samovar owner Jesse Jacobs and events associate Jennifer Sauer (Author of The Way to Tea: Your Adventure Guide to San Francisco Tea Culture).

Details
Tuesday, June 16
7-8:30 p.m. (Come early for dinner!)
Samovar Tea Lounge Zen Valley
297 Page Street (@ Laguna Street)
San Francisco, CA 94102
Phone: (415) 861-0303

Tickets are limited to 22 people per event. Samovar Tea Lounge will serve fine premium teas equally valued at the cost of admission ($12) at the start of each event. Dining is available from 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm prior to the forum. Discount tickets are also available: two people for $20 (single event), or three tickets (three individual events) for $30.

All Tea Salons will be held from 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm, and tickets are available for purchase at Samovar’s Zen Valley location.

Tea Mind

©2009 Jennifer Leigh Sauer

I just finished reading the book The Republic of Tea: Letters to a Young Zentrepreneur, by the company’s original founders, Will Rosenzweig and Mel & Patricial Ziegler.  In a series of whimsical faxes exchanged during the early 1990s between Mel (as mentor) and Will (as mentee), Mel describes not only how to build a company from the ground up, but how to craft a life: “sip by sip, not gulp by gulp.”

As the book progresses, Mel invites both his colleague, Will, and his readers to consider the benefits of Tea Mind– the state of mind one enters at around cup number five, according to Tang Dynasty poet, Lu Tong who wrote, “At the fifth cup, I am purified,” in his poem, Tea Drinking.

“I want what I have,” Mel petitions the reader, through his advice to Will. This statement is at the nucleus of Tea Mind, and the raison d’etre of creating a tea business, particularly in a severe economic downturn.

Wanting what you have provides relief, particularly when you need a distraction from thinking about what you may recently have lost or might lose in the unknown future. Tea is a wonderful tonic for any depression, be it economic or physiological. Tea Mind comes naturally from drinking tea and taking time out of one’s day to be quiet, observant and resident in his or her own stillness. It comes of itself, as easily as the steam.

Tea Mind is enduring and even more important now than it was during that puny recession of the early 1990’s when The Republic of Tea book was written (and the company founded).

Tea Mind is wanting what you have rather than angling to get what you want.  This small shift in words nudges the reader towards a huge yet simple segue in thinking and values. You find that wanting what you have is much more gratifying and takes much less energy than wanting things to be different.  “I want, I want, I want,” says the incumbent monkey mind. Yet when you sit down and sip a rare, hand-crafted oolong made from the ancient trees of China, you suddenly look around, and although life and its present challenges are still the same, you somehow settle into yourself, and the need for things to change somehow evaporates like streaks of steam rising then disappearing from your cup.

Suddenly, you are still and empty, and simply enjoying the gorgeousness of the steam itself, its aroma mingling with the comfort of your favorite books sitting on the shelf, and the lovely color of your living room walls.

Life has changed, and you didn’t do a thing, but drink some tea and start thinking differently. “Wow,” says Tea Mind. “Steam, color, smell.” Tea Mind is that simple:  “I want what I have.”

~Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away thither~

By Jennifer Leigh Sauer for Samovar Life

Tea Entrepreneur: Will Rosenzweig

Please join Will Rosenzweig, original founder of The Republic of Tea, at the first Samovar Tea Salon series, “Coping With The New Economy”.  The “Minister of Progress” will speak on the topic of Entrepreneurship as the first event of the series.

Details:
Tuesday, June 2
7-8:30 p.m.
Samovar Tea Lounge Zen Valley
297 Page Street/Laguna, San Francisco
(415) 861-0303

Tickets will be available for sale in the Zen Valley Store location only, for $12 per event. Save money, and purchase the entire series of 6 salons for $65. As this is a very intimate event, there are only 30 available seats. Tickets are non refundable.

Samovar Tea Lounge will serve fine premium teas  at the start of each event. Dining is available from 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm prior to the forum. Discount tickets are also available if purchasing the entire series of 6 salons for $65. All events will be held from 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm, and tickets are available for purchase only at Samovar’s Zen Valley location.

-Jennifer Leigh Sauer, is a freelance photographer, award-winning video journalist, and author based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the author of The Way to Tea: Your Adventure Guide to San Francisco Tea Culture (2007). Click here to reach her by email.