Name Dropping in Tea-Land

As mentioned in my previous blog, I had the opportunity to cavort with The Spirit of Tea in January. And Tea seems to share my love of love The City By The Bay. There’s now a book about it.

“The Way To Tea: Your Adventure Guide To San Francisco Tea Culture” is a beautiful experience of tea in San Francisco. Author and Photographer, Jennifer Sauer, captures the spirit of tea elegantly and Norwood Pratt adds the forward and his charming authority to a true tea collectible.

You see the name dropping!

NASFT’s Fancy Food Show: A Thriving Specialty Food Marketplace

We all gathered for the West Coast’s annual Fancy Food Show. It has become an opportunity for those of us who hear the sweet song of Camellia Sinensis find concert there. And of the 1,500 booths representing every foodie category (except, perhaps, fresh produce) tea has found it’s way into an amazing variety of products. We’re HOT now, you know. Therefore, the essence of tea is finding itself incorporated into an increasing number of other food items. A small trace of tea extract can be translated into eye-popping banner ads. There were about a hundred booths with some kind of tea mention. But the tea people tended to congregate at the booths displaying trays of the dry leaf and seaming pots of the elegant liquor. You can taste your way around the world in many food categories as you walk the floor of the FFS. But in a booth like Rishi Tea, you can taste your way around the world while standing still, chatting with Benjamin Harrison and Joshua Kaiser.

More name dropping.

We who have been to the World Tea Expo are familiar with tea displays like theirs. But the other Foodies, new to tea, still experienced the Wow Factor - being able to see and touch so many kinds of dry leaf and then to sample some of the premium brews. Even with the exposure to the cavernous environment of Moscone Center and amid the heavy aroma of the hundreds of other prepared foods in the room, you can still smell the fragile bouquet of artisan tea. Specialty teas.

There were a great many tea booths displaying their products in a variety of creative and enticing ways. I think I will craft a list for one of my blogs to demonstrate the wonderful variety representing our industry. And what happens when so many tea people find themselves in the same city?

They Party!

Specialty Tea Institute Networking Reception

This is another aspect of Art & Spirit of Tea which deserves an entire article. But I’ll share this one fragment as a closing to this rambling. STI hosted a lovely gathering in conjunction with their certification class schedule, conveniently coordinated with the Fancy Food Show. Closing a day of tea and an evening of wine, Norwood offered a kind of benediction. He shared a message of hope against the concerns of this economy. Our industry, tea, is ancient and new. We have survived much worse, many times. “Everything old is new again. . .” he offered. “Tea brings us together as a family.”

That it does.

We cavorted with Spirit of Tea in San Francisco. Tea likes to have a good time.

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