If thereโ€™s a dirty little secret to how the Sprudge sausage gets made, itโ€™s tea. While prodigious consumers of coffee during publishing hours, the editorial team has a not insignificant amount of room in their cups for an afternoon tea. And we can say from firsthand experience that though the mechanics of brewing tea are simple, the execution can off be quite difficult. But starting this week, Spirit Tea and Marco have teamed up for a west coast tour they are calling the Spirit of Tea Tour, a four-stop Matcha Latte Throwdown and Tea Education series teaching the โ€œpractical knowledge and skills for tea that is presented with the same expertise, passion and care as your coffee.โ€

Each stop on the Spirit of Tea Tour breaks down into two sessions. The first is the Tea Education workshop, where attendees will be introduced to the seasonality of tea as well as tea leaf chemistry and a dialing-in exercise. The session will conclude with a seasonal tea tasting โ€œhighlighting a broad range of terroirs and varieties.โ€

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The night session will be a little less formal than the afternoonโ€™s. Your learning potential may be slightly decreased, but thereโ€™s still a strong chance youโ€™ll get schooled on the finer points of the four-tier tea-lip at the Matcha Latte Throwdown. The throwdown will follow the standard latte art throwdown bracket format, only instead of pouring into espresso, participants will be making pretty designs with milk in matcha.

The Spirit of Tea Tour kicks off this Thursday in Los Angeles. The Tea Education workshop takes place at 1pm at Steelhead Coffee in Long Beach before moving to Cafe Dulce in downtown LA for the Matcha Latte Throwdown. The Spirit of Tea Tour then hits the road for Denver, Portland, and Seattle over the coming months.

Though intended primarily for baristas and cafe owners, the Spirit of Tea Tour is open to the general public and is free to attend. For more information or to find the dates for the next tour stops, visit Spirit Teaโ€™s official website.

Zac Cadwaladerย is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.

*all images via Spirit Tea

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