Gelateria Naia is proud to host the Gelateria Naia Pre-Release Gelato Tasting.

Sample twenty-two (22!) never-before released gelato flavors created in conjunction with the founders at Numi Tea of Oakland, Blue Bottle Coffee of Oakland, Recchiuti Chocolates of San Francisco, TCHO Chocolate of San Francisco and St George Spirits / Hangar One of Alameda. From 6:00pm to 9:00pm on Thursday, February 4th, you will be able to sample as much as you like from a wide array of gelato made from the finest local ingredients available.

Some of the flavors include a sneak preview of: Numi Tea Aged Earl Gray, TCHO Chocolate Nutty, Blue Bottle Coffee Sidamo, St. George Spirits Absinthe, TCHO Chocolate Citrus, Numi Tea Rooibos Red Mellow Bush, and Blue Bottle Coffee Bella Donovan.

Several of our friends from these local artisans will be on hand to discuss or sample their products as well.

Proceeds from the event will go to Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) to aid the relief effort in Haiti.

*tickets need to be purchased in advanced*

Tickets are only available at brownpapertickets.com.

Sometimes making a new flavor can be an unexpected challenge. As we toured the Numi Tea warehouse with owner Ahmed Rahim, it was obvious he and his company are obsessed with tea. It was also obvious that there is a huge variety of teas, teasans, flowering teas, puerhs, herbal teas and on and on. Chris and I left the meeting excited and loaded down with two giant boxes of tea samples.

The reality of what we needed to do next sank in when we laid it all out in our gelato kitchen. We had nearly two dozen different tea varieties that needed to be made into gelato. That’s a lot of work so Chris and I came up with a plan, ask Todd to do it.

We brought 18 samples of tea gelato back for the entire Numi office for a tasting. We were rewarded with huge smiles and kind words. They complimented our fine gelato and we praised their high quality tea. In a few weeks you will be able to enjoy several flavors of tea gelato made with tea sourced from Numi, another great Bay Area company.

We are always working on new flavors. Always. There are a number of things that inspire us to create a new gelato flavor but the best inspiration comes from meeting people. Here in the Bay Area we are spoiled with an abundance of fellow food artisans.

Last week we met James Freeman at his beautiful new Blue Bottle roasting facility in Oakland. We explained how we make gelato and he talked about different ways they roast and brew coffee. Then we enjoyed a cupping of several single origin beans. Then James said, “Where’s the gelato?” He gathered some people and we enjoyed another kind of cupping.

From that one conversation we developed a whole new way to make coffee gelato, we call it the cold press method. Our Blue Bottle Coffee Gelato will be in stores soon.