Having a *Yelping* good time!

We have enjoyed working with Yelp recently - first with an Elite event at the shop and then more recently at a big event in Fair Oaks!  Check out our profile and add a review on your experience with Nautilus Tea Company!  

Sweetheart Formal Tea 2-17-18

Join us at Nautilus Tea Company for our Sweetheart Formal Tea on Saturday, February 17th.

You will be able to choose your favorite tea from our collection and enjoy it along with delectable delights including finger sandwiches, quiche, scones and desserts prepared by Sweet 13 Cakes.

Seating is limited, so please reserve your tables now. We are accepting reservations of 2 to 4 people on Eventbrite (https://2018sweethearttea.eventbrite.com). For parties of one or larger than four, please contact us at Nautilus Tea Company directly at 916-542-1832.

Tea Dueling - Second Saturdays

Bring a friend and challenge them to a duel! Don't let the cookie crumble and  win a chance to move on to the next round! Bottomless tea, cookies and snacks. Starts at 6:30 p.m. on Second Saturdays starting in February. $5

New Drinks for November

Our first drink is called the Chance Encounter. We lost a friend this year and this drink was created in his honor.  It is composed of Hibiscus and our famous Blue Butterfly Tea. Add to this a little sweetener and coconut milk; it is art in motion.

Our second drink, the Crimson Peak, was inspired by the movie of the same name. If you haven't seen it, go! We were so inspired by it that we created a new drink to celebrate it. We start out with Vanilla and Hibiscus teas,add a shot of almond syrup, and sprinkle some "snow" with red sugar crystals.

A Taste for Fall

     Brr! Feel the chill in the air? Fall is here, which means cooler days and chillier nights. The perfect time to grab yourself a hot cup, or pot, of tea. But what makes an enjoyable warm drink for the season?

     When thinking about fall time drinks many people go towards those that are spicier (especially cinnamon) in flavor. Though there are other such variety of flavors and concoctions one can get to have an autumn seasonal feel. Such as teas containing hazelnut, chocolate, cranberry, roobios, apples, chai, and the ever popular pumpkin spice. Think of drinks that are richer and more intricate in flavor.

     Herbal teas are great for this time of the year as well. Not only are they a nice warm treat, but many herbal drinks can help your health during this more cold and flu season. Roobios is a great antioxidant that can help boost your immune system, where as ginger or chamomile can be used to help fight against many flu like symptoms. Who knew trying to keep healthy could be so delicious?

What are your favorite fall time flavors?

Life in the New Year

I realize that we have been remiss in posting as often as we should and hopefully, we have solved that by adding someone onto our posting list who will keep you all informed of new and exciting things that happen around here.  That said, I still want to occasionally come in and say a few things that I think are relevant or that I just wish to share.

So, a couple months ago, we celebrated our one year anniversary and we hope you have enjoyed the last year as much as we have.  We've learned a lot and were so pleasantly surprised at the number of friends both old and new who have supported us through this journey.  It is amazing to us how much talent we have around us and that has helped us along the way with t-shirts, flyers, social media, moving furniture, catering events, waiting tables at those events, artwork, and the list goes on.  Thank you to everyone who has helped us in whatever way, especially my parents who are here every week to help in the shop and lend support.

Last month, we held our first ever art show which you can read about here in the blog.  We hope to do one every month eventually, but for now, every two months or so seems to work.  We love having local artists bring items in and enjoy the variety.  We also had a kids section and we are hoping that continues as well.  Kids love to see their pictures on display and we want to encourage all those budding artists out there!  Be sure to come by starting next week to see the new art that is going up and, if you can, visit on September 12th at 7pm to meet some of the artists that contributed and hang out for a small reception.

See you soon!  Tonja

Artwork and Tea Merged Together for The Brass Cup Gallery and Reception!

     What does an octopus, tea cup, shark, and steampunk all have in common? They're elements of the multiple pieces of artwork created by local artists that were on display at Nautilus Tea Company. The first art gallery to appear at Nautilus, being called The Brass Cup, gained ten entries that wonderfully adorned the shop during July. Each piece that was displayed are genuine in originality, design, creativity, and execution. All varied in different types of mediums such as digital art, watercolor, and even markers. Viewers, younger or older, could have a great appreciation for the skill that was presented within the shop during that month.

     A reception was run for the gallery on the second Saturday of July. Words of wonder and appreciation could be heard by the attendees as they walked from one piece of art to another. As the reception went on, the tea and treats being graciously consumed, more involved discussions began to trickle their way through the guests. One could not argue that those who viewed the art had one or a few pieces that truly spoke out to them. Whether it was the calm and serene scene of a sailor drinking a cup of tea during a sunrise over the ocean (Tea at Sunrise by Thomas Anderson), or the adorable story of a child being inspired by red tea and sharks wearing scopes infiltrating on unknowing explorers (Red Tea & Shark Scopes by Colton Croy). Each piece of art presented in the gallery were all wonderfully marvelous and so beautifully displayed. 

     Thank you to those who entered their delightful work into the gallery, attended the reception in appreciating and viewing said work, and a thank you to the Nautilus Tea Company for hosting and accepting local artists to create such a wonderful gallery of talented individuals.

Artists Listed in Order of Slideshow

• Steampunk Tea Cup by Lily Croy
• Tea Cup and Plate by Derek Croy
• Red Tea & Shark Scopes by Colton Croy
• Earl Grey by Hilary Stephenson
• Cup of Tea by Allison Buchholtz
• Drink Me by Allison Buchholtz
• Tea Under the Sea by Marsha Mason
• Infini-tea by Jordyn Williams
• Tea at Sunrise by Thomas Adams
• Cthulu Head by Ashley Malasig

Valentine SpeakTEAsy

Tickets Sold here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

First off, we hope everyone had a safe and flavorful Thanksgiving.  We enjoyed a nice one ourselves and have a lot to be thankful for.  First, that we are able to be here and enjoy sharing our wonderful teas with you. Second, that we have such great support from our family and friends and were able to embark on this adventure in the first place. And last, but definitely not least, we are thankful for you.  Our friends both old and new have driven our Facebook following up past the 400 mark in 4 months, and that is amazing.  You are the reason we come in every day.  You make it a great place to work.  Thank you!

As we mentioned in a past post, we changed our hours on the weekends since we have a few people who want to come in a bit earlier on Saturday.  We made sure to leave Friday evenings open later for eventual live music and a cup of tea after dinner.  We've used that time to experiment with tea dueling, and we look forward to you coming in and bringing your chess set or dominoes and spending the evening gaming with a pot of tea.

As several of you know, we get our flowers from Bella Fiore in Old Fair Oaks Village.  Dawn does a great job of making unique and seasonal selections for us every week.  What you may not have known was that the small arrangements are for sale.  That's right, the teacup arrangements can be taken home for you to enjoy.  They come in fresh every Tuesday (with the occasional exception) and include the lovely teacup they are arranged in.

So, we hear that spent tea leaves can be good for your garden; especially, roses and tomatoes.  We dump a batch every day, so if you come in later in the day, and want some spent tea leaves for your garden, just ask.  We are happy to send them home with you.  There might also be occasional coffee grounds which are good too.

A Little Bit of Fun and a Small Announcement...

It has been a good week at the Nautilus. We attended the Steampunk Symposium this last weekend and had a lot of fun.  We saw some great costumes and had fun in our own.  Mike looked like he belonged on an 1860s street!  Since we had never taken the underground tour of old Sacramento, we took the opportunity to this weekend and it was very fun.  It was relief from the day's heat, but Tonja discovered that a corset may not be the best outfit to wear during a walking tour. 

While at the Symposium, we attended a presentation by Madam Askew and her cohorts on How To Start Your Own Tea Dueling Society.  It seems that a lot of fun can be had from such simple weapons as cookies, tea and a sharp wit. So we decided that we will begin to have dueling events on Friday evenings from 7 pm to 9 pm.  If you should like to test your wit and merit, just let "The Judge" or "Madame yet-to-be-named" know that you wish to duel with us or one of your party, and we will explain the rules.  We hope to have enough people to eventually do entire brackets and start an official society.  We had a couple of practice duels earlier this week and below, you can see a little bit of one of them.  For the record, there were two rounds, and neither participant had a "clean nom", so further duels may need to be fought to soothe the honor of one of our brave contestants.

The Judge prepping the playing field for a duel with Patrick.

The face off!  Notice the extended pinkies...proper form is very important!

After experimenting with the Blue Butterfly tea, we decided it would be a nice addition to what we currently offer. We offer it both by itself and blended with lemon grass. As with all of our fine teas, we can serve it any way you like.  And of course, you can take it home by the ounce.  We look forward to seeing all of you become instant chemists by adding the little bit of lemon to watch the amazing color change..  

It's pretty in the jars too!

Decorations are slowly being set up for the upcoming decorative holiday seasons. We are starting from scratch and moving slowly, but we are trying to create a fun and festive look, so bear with us!

An announcement:  We have had some time to evaluate our hours and their effectiveness, and decided that we will be shifting our Saturday hours to offer more morning time and close a bit earlier unless we have an event that evening.  The rest of the week will stay the same.  So, beginning November 1, here are the new hours:

Tuesday- Thursday:	10 am- 6 pm
Friday:	11am- 9 pm
Saturday:	9am- 7 pm
Sunday, Monday:	Closed

Halloween in a glass and then some.

As you may have seen, we started an ad campaign in the Sacramento News and Review.  The first ad was in the Best of Sacramento Issue on September 11.  Our second ad has come out and we'll have an ad in there about every two weeks.  We have realized each time that we missed something, and by the last one, it should be perfect!

We were told about a blue tea, so we did some investigating and found that it is a blue flower called a butterfly pea and is from Thailand.  We ordered a sampling of the flavors available and have been playing with it.  It has a lovely blue color that changes to purple once you add lemon juice to it.  On the left, you can see the vivid hues.  So we thought about it and finally ordered some.  It is on it's way and we will have it soon for you to order.  Come in and ask for a sample!

So, about the drink contest: honestly, we completely dropped the ball on it and as such only had a few submissions, so, we will continue taking suggestions for the near future and will keep you posted on our progress toward finding signature drinks.  We also had a suggestion for a blend of tea.  I look forward to getting the ingredients and trying the blend!

There is now a new category on the mirror called "Novel-teas" and we will be adding more drink submissions to it. The first of course was the Nemo Tuxedo (invented by Mike) composed of chocolate tea, vanilla syrup, and milk.  The young one invented the Tropical Rose composed of hibiscus tea and a shot of rose syrup.  One of our customers invented a new concoction based on the Tuxedo, but substituting Pumpkin Spice syrup for the Vanilla.  It is so good, we asked him to name it and now, we have the Sleepy Hollow for the fall season.

In an upcoming event, the Kiwanis Club will be hosting the Brews and Boos charity and raffle on Friday, October 17th, at 6:30pm at the Community Center in Citrus Heights.  It will celebrate the best of October, Oktoberfest and Halloween with singing, dancing and a performance by The Capitol Pops (with Mike in the Clarinet section).  We are donating a raffle prize, so come on out and celebrate October, support the band and buy a raffle ticket!  Oh, and wear your favorite Halloween or Bavarian duds!

As you may or may not have known, we created an open sign that matched our decor.  The downside of it was that it was very dark and didn't light up.  We have altered it and now we are much more visible!  Make sure to compliment Mike on it when you see him next!