Cristina Romero is a Spanish blogger and I catch up with her and discuss life.

Cristina, a pleasure to interview a fellow blogger. Tell my audience something important about you?

Thank you very much, Jerry. I could be compared with the hands of a clock. In other words, I am always “functioning”. I am a very active person and I don’t stay put. I do not think there are enough hours in a day to do everything I would want to do. I am very human; my heart drives me. I like to help people around me. As a result, I find it worthwhile because that shapes the person I am. In conclusion, I am a woman that is very independent, very devoted to others, with clear ideas on her mind and who doesn’t settle.

Tell me a little about your blog and why did you decide to blog?

My blog is the start of a new phase in my life. After having worked in media and communications, I stopped working full time to take care of a family member.

After two years, I created the trademark “by Tina” and designed a handbag collection of different types of material, which were made in Spain. The fixed costs were high and I did not have any financial backing. I, therefore, decided to pursue something that I liked which is writing and having my own blog.

It was challenging at the beginning and a new world for me. I thought through the whole process and designed the website by myself. I am a perfectionist by nature. I took courses on blogging and www.elblogdetina.es was born.

The blog is about my thoughts, reflections, and state of mind on various topics like a visit to a restaurant, my kids, or just cooking. It is a journey.

What kind of journalism do you specialize in? What do you like about journalism?

I have worked in the press and radio.  I did not like what I saw when I started working for different media companies. To my mind ethics are a key feature of individuals, and this should be even more highlighted when you work in the “fourth power”. When I was faced with the truth about journalism, I was hugely disappointed. My ideas around journalism pictured the great reporter investigating for news but the reality is very different.  The news is delivered to you by the big press agencies and that is a debacle for your ideas.

What does female empowerment mean to you?

I believe women need to have their own dignity, be independent, and have their rights acknowledged. I further think that Spain where I live,  men and women have the same rights and opportunities (at least from a legal perspective, which sometimes plays out differently in practice).

When I was born, I had the same opportunities as my brother and the same is true for my friends. Maybe if you look back two generations it was odd to see the same number of men and women study, but nowadays any child born, be it a boy or a girl, will go to school and have the opportunity to go to university and have a future. I don’t see women as a prejudiced social group in Spain because of being born female.

I think that the word empowerment is fully compatible with women, as the word indicates, gain control over their own lives and circumstances. Maybe it is actually the circumstances each of them faces in her life that makes that woman give up on her professional life (be it because she has kids she wants to raise so that she can be independent in the future or because she has a disabled relative who she needs to take care of or due to other reasons…). And it is here where I see that laws don’t work properly: both a woman and a man should be able to take care of their families and home without giving up on financial independence, but there is no government help for this.

How has social media changed your society?

Social media has allowed people to have a broader view of life.  In other words, not everything is controlled by the same media. Therefore, the freedom to express yourself has substantially increased. It is a great tool to exchange information and has led nowadays to a steep change in mass media.

Spanish society has evolved positively in a lot of ways on the back of social media as it has given everyone a voice. The flipside of this is that it gives rise to abuse, to people manipulating social media to achieve their goals or to professional haters hiding behind the anonymous status a profile gives them, but that can be mitigated by the right of every individual to choose what he wants to read, follow or do.

Help me understand some of the challenges you have faced in life and how did you overcome it?

The first was in the workplace. In order to move up in the media world, I faced, as we say in Spain,  “pasar por la piedra”, It means as a woman if your boss comes and tells you that in order to progress you have to have dinner with him (or do anything, as we have recently seen in the cinema world) and when you say no he makes your professional life unbearable until you quit.

Another tougher challenge was when the CEO of my company told all female employees that he didn’t want any of us to get pregnant and that if we did no one could in “his” company (which wasn’t actually his) apply for a part-time job as is set out by Spanish law. When my second child was born, I decided to focus more on my family, and therefore against the will of my boss I notified HR that I applied for the reduced working hours that I was entitled to. They couldn’t obviously object but they made life difficult until I voluntarily left. That challenge has been very important and thanks to the fact that I actually sent that notice to HR and subsequently left women can (and do) now have different options of working hours in that company and can find a work-life balance.

The third challenge was that I was in a relationship with a male chauvinist. When I wore a skirt, it was too short and he wanted me to wear pants. He did not want me to drive and was emotionally abusive.

He was very controlling, negative and it had a deep impact on my personality. He was very aggressive in his character. I became aware of his negative impact on me and mentioned that I wanted to end the relationship. He became manipulative, by threatening to jump out of the window, screaming, and even broken a door to get into the room I had locked myself in.

However, I decided to quit this toxic relationship, as I would never be happy and called it off. We should be free in a relationship and not be subdued and unhappy. I still have to see him because of certain issues but I have learned to forgive and have pity on him.

Talk to me about Spanish society and is it still patriarchal or an equal society?

Spanish society is undergoing constant change. In the last few years, it has changed significantly and there is a long way to go. Spain has a constitution since 1978. We were coming from a completely patriarchal society, where women’s role was basically to be the wife of someone and raise the kids whilst staying at home (with some exceptions). Women gained the right to vote in the 30s, notably 1933 and it was strange to find women studying in university and having a job linked to their career thereafter. The change was accelerated in 1978 and since then boosted, and it has only been 41 years! It is amazing to see how everything has changed since now we live in an equal society.

As I said, most women are free to decide what they want to do in life and if they want to continue with their career or prefer to devote more time to their family and give up a professional career. But there is still a lot to improve regarding maternity leave and the way back to work once it is finished. Rejoining your job isn’t easy and sometimes your salary is not worth it. A lot has to change. You can of course always decide to start your own business and try to balance family life and work that way, but not everyone has the financial capacity to be able to do that and the government doesn’t, unfortunately, help much. On top of that, not everyone has the personality you need to start your own business and prefers to settle for a company or, if you are a woman after maternity leave, stay at home.

Walk me through some of the best restaurants in your city?

The restaurant scene has exploded in Madrid in the last decade.

There is a choice for every palate and wallet. From eating fantastic pinchos in the San Antón market to a nice plate of pasta in an Italian restaurant such as Don Giovanni, Mediterranean food as in La Ancha or El Qüenco de Pepa, nice fish in el Barril or go to restaurants that are more trendy where fusion food or Japanese food are growing such as Amazonico, Bibo, Sushi 99, Inari and many others…. you can also have a great piece of Brazilian meat in Rubaiyat. This is all on top of your classic paella or other rice dishes like in St. James restaurant, but Spanish food goes way beyond paella.  A very welcoming restaurant where you have great food is La Buena Vida, with one of the best cheesecakes in town. Another one of my favorites is Taberna Laredo. I could go on forever…

What is your city famous for and why should we visit it?

Madrid is 1000 years old, historic and one of the greatest European capitals. It is a thriving, cosmopolitan city with a dynamic cultural scene and amazing weather.

Food is an obsession (not least the Mediterranean diet has been considered the most healthy diet worldwide) and there is plenty to choose from as madrileños tend to go out a lot…

On top of that, if you have enough of Madrid, which is very difficult to happen, you have amazing places nearby, including several world heritage sites like Toledo, or the Roman aqueduct in Segovia, or the walls of Avila…all within less than an hour drive.

How do you find balance in modern-day society and what are your priorities?

I think we have gone very quickly from one extreme to the other, from not having the technology available to having access to everything. New technologies bring with them a lot of good things but also give rise to something that is very bad: social isolation. It is very sad when for example I am having dinner in a restaurant and look around me and see most people with their mobile phones, teenagers meeting their friends and each of them just looks at their mobile, rather than speaking to each other, playing cards… there should be more education on the bad use of technology in order to foster healthy, natural and true relationships.

If when you raise kids you should impose time limitations on the use of technology. At home we have rules for the use of technology (including the fact that when we have lunch or gather with our family or friends we can’t use technological devices) and, to be honest, life is good that way because at the end of the day we are people and personal relationships should still be channeled through conversations and face to face instead of through phones or screens.

Balance in modern life would to me be complete equality of rights between men and women, that we were all free people with the ability to think for ourselves, without being conditioned by anyone and that we could all study and work to be truly independent.

The post Cristina Romero: Spain’s Modern Clara Campoamor appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.

Muskan Khanna has broken human, social, and financial capital barriers to start an organic Tea Studio.

Female entrepreneurs are women who run a business. Female entrepreneurship has increased and given rise to self-made females like Oprah Winfrey, Meg Whitman, Diane Hendricks, and Coco Chanel.

Muskan Khanna owns a boutique organic Tea Studio that is run entirely by women.  Muskan Khanna is a game-changer in the male-dominated tea business. She plays by different rules.  She talks about tea and corporate social responsibility. Muskan left the advertising business to create unique teas for the discerning, international palate.

Muskan, please tell my global audience a little about you?

I was born in Assam, the heart of tea. After that, we moved to Dubai when I was four and later to Colombo during my teens. I graduated from Birmingham in media studies. I worked in Mumbai and Delhi in advertising for two years and then joined my dad in the tea business. In conclusion, it has been a process and a journey to get to my calling being involved in the tea business.

Walk me through the tea club? 

Our specialty tea unit is called the Tea Studio.  A unique one of its kind, tea production facility where teas are not manufactured industrially, but creatively crafted.  Every one of the 12 teas we create in the Studio is one-of-a-kind, stand-alone tea.  Not grades, but individual.

I have heard of Darjeeling, Sri Lankan, and Assam tea. Tell me a little about tea from the Nilgiris?

Teas from the Nilgiris have a distinctive character and a uniqueness.  These are all high grown teas (our Studio is at an elevation of 6,300′ above MSL) which can be recognized by the Nilgiri logo which is assigned to teas from this district.

What is unique about these teas?

Each of the 12 teas manufactured in the Tea Studio is made up of a whole, unbroken leaf. In regular factories, be it orthodox or CTC the teas are graded into different lots. Here at the studio one tea leaf will make one particular type of tea, no grading and no sorting are required as we have 0% dust.

What are the different ways we can drink tea?

There are plenty of different ways to drink tea. Tea can be consumed as a hot or cold beverage. Tea can be brewed with milk and sugar, just milk, just sugar, some people put cane sugar while others make it with a mix of spices and herbs.

Can tea be used in cooking? 

Off course. For instance, green tea cakes and green tea flavored biscuits. My personal favorite is a green tea-infused roast chicken. It consists of a marinade of ginger, garlic, olive oil, thyme, and rosemary. The tea is in a foil and placed inside the whole chicken and cooked in the oven for about 40 minutes. As a result, once you cut the chicken, you get the aroma of tea and can taste it in the chicken itself.

What are some of the qualities required to be a tea sommelier?

One needs to be passionate and dedicated to the craft and love it.  A tea sommelier is like an artist, creating while working not with ‘dead’ or ‘lifeless’ material such as wood, paint, or clay, but with a living and alive part of a plant.  The Tea leaves.

What is the difference between organic and normal tea? 

Organic teas emanate from fields that are organically cultivated in which no chemicals, pesticides, or inorganic fertilizers are used.  Organic teas simply take one back to nature and to the way crops were cultivated before humans started degrading the soil.  The teas produced in the Studio are all deemed organic since the starting point of these teas is the natural organic raw material (the leaf).  In conclusion, purity.

How are your practices sustainable and how are you corporate and socially responsible?

We are the only factory in India that runs on 100% LPG, which means we use no coal or firewood like regular factories making us totally environmentally friendly. We are a 100% women-run organization, from the head of operations to the tea maker and the workers are all women. We have employed the women from the local villages around, helping the community and empowering women all the way through.

Tell me a little about the food here and your favorite dishes?

Indian food is usually quite spicy and full of flavor. My favorite dish of all time is Biryani. Biryani is a dish made of rice and meat, it is cooked for a couple of hours and is eaten with curd and pickle.

Tell me a good joke about tea?

What do you call a talkative drink?

Chai Tea.

Photo Credits: Ian Wagg Plush Design Studio THE 5TH Loverna Journey Alisa Anton Joanna Kosinska  Micheile Henderson Katrin Hauf Raychan

The post The Game Changer in the Tea Business appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.

Muskan Khanna is the embodiment of the 21^st century.  She is fearless, thinks outside the box, makes the rules, a game-changer who has broken the glass ceiling and aims for the sky. She gets it. To grow your footprint in a global environment, you have to have a unique value proposition, have a competitive advantage, be green, use sustainable farming methods, use corporate social responsibility and invest in the local community. She empowers women by only hiring them. Is it any wonder that her first interview is one of the most liked on my blog. She is not your quintessential sommelier. I give you Muskan Khanna.

Muskan, Four Columns welcomes you back. Your first interview was one of the most read and liked posts. As a result, let’s talk about tea again. Tell me about the health benefits of tea?

Wow! I did not expect that. There are quite a few health benefits, but in my mind, these are probably the top 5:

Tea contains antioxidants, which help keep us young, skin looking better, and even protects us from the damage of pollution.

Tea has less caffeine than coffee, almost up to 50% less! And we all know the negative effects of caffeine.

Tea helps boost the immune system.

Tea also helps soothe the digestive system – so it’s a good thing to have after a heavy meal.

And lastly, for you weight-conscious people out there, tea is calorie-free!

Congrats on being innovative, sustainable, being corporate socially responsible, and investing in women. You have just released some new brands like White, Oolong, Green, Black and Roasted Green. What are the similarities, differences, and uniqueness of these teas?

These teas are unique in their own way, the process of each type of tea is different, different machines using different temperatures all tell these teas apart from one another.

The similarity between ALL the teas produced here at the studio is the raw material – one leaf and a bud.

Muskan, I have been drinking tea all my life. I am your typical heat the water, dip an orange Tetley tea bag, brown sugar, milk, and cardamom kind of guy. Teach me some innovative ways to expand my horizons of tea and how does tea help us in our moods and different settings?

Gosh! What you’ve been drinking sounds very little like tea to me Jerry.

The best way to drink any tea be it white, green, oolong, or black is to brew it in hot water by itself – that’s how I drink it anyway.

Teas such as Nilgiri Platinum Needles and Nilgiri Baimudan contain the most amount of caffeine, so this is a good wake-up tea to have, whereas teas like our Nilgiri bamboo and Nilgiri Kukicha has the least amount of caffeine, so these are good bedtime tea recommendations.

Does the tea come in bags or separately and what is the difference?

Our teas are sold in 250gm loose leaf pouches. No tea bags for now.

Help me understand how tea is grown and the whole process from seeds to the time they are harvested?

There are two ways of growing a tea bush, you could either plant the seeds (a much longer process) or you could plant saplings, which have been taken from existing bushes.  Once planted the bushes take approx 5-6 years to grow and are ready for plucking on a regular basis.

The Camellia Sinensis plant is actually a full-grown tree, so one has to make sure it remains at table height so it easy to pluck. The bushes are also cropped in such a way that they are flat, which allows more buds to shoot up.

For teas like ours, which uses very high-quality leaf, the plucker has to go back to the bush every 7-9 days and pluck off the one leaf and a bud and then wait another 7-9 days for the buds to start shooting up again.

Once these are harvested, they’re brought into our factory in small bamboo baskets so as not to damage the leaf.

Talk to me about the caffeine content in tea and do you have decaffeinated tea?

As I mention before tea does contain caffeine but much less than coffee, and every tea has different levels of caffeine. For example, white and green tea contain 1/3 of the caffeine as compared to coffee, and oolong and black have less than ½ of the caffeine content as coffee.

It might also interest you to know caffeine is a natural component in Camellia Sinensis, so all teas will have caffeine.

The longer a tea is brewed for, the more caffeine it loses.

And caffeine from tea is thought to absorb in the body more slowly.

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