Check out my coverage of both Day 1 and Day 2 of the 2011 World Tea Expo.

The World Tea Expo is such a fantastic event that even after only a few times through I can’t imagine not attending every year. I spark wonderful conversations with people, make new friends and contacts and come out knowing more than ever about tea in all its forms. This year really was no different in this respect. From a Tea Anthropologist I met at breakfast on Day 2 to time spent hanging out with my new buddy Ankit Lochan of Lochan Tea (we went to the Hoover Dam) I really had a great time this year.

But, without further ado…

Day 2

I spent some quality time with a few of the larger brands on Sunday. A wonderful but short visit over to the Harney & Sons booth showed Michael Harney’s lighter side and let me reconnect with the brand which first exposed me to loose tea. I always enjoy speaking with the Harney’s. They have great business sense to be sure, and they know their teas but they’re also great to talk with and learn from. You should drop in on their SoHo store if you’re in Manhattan.

Michael Harney & I

Michael Harney's Lighter Side

Moving along, I spent some time with some new friends with World Tea Media, purveyors of the World Tea News (WTN) industry publication and the World Tea and World Tea East expos. George and Kim Jage started the expo some number of years ago and it’s really grown into something wonderful! Dan Bolton, editor of the WTN articles and I had a nice long chat as well. It was a pretty awesome chance to connect with some of the larger names in the industry at the moment.

Some Tea from Rishi Tea

International Tea Importers is one of the larger wholesale groups around and they have some mighty fine product. They had a couple of the more unique items I was able to check out this year. Amongst my favorite activities at the expo are speaking with ITI’s purveyor, Mr. Devan Shah as well as venerable Tea Luminary Mr. James Norwood Pratt (to whom I always wish to bestow the title of Sir.) I hope next year I’ll have the opportunity to share a meal with these gentlemen.

Sir James Norwood Pratt and I

A stop over to Teas Etc yielded a great opportunity to chat up Beth Johnston and new friend Sherri Miller of Moonrise Tea Garden out of Hawaii. I reviewed Sherri’s crop from last year if you care to check it out. I also had a chance to speak with Newman Johnston and am always super excited after talking tea, business and happy things with these folks. There’s so much to go over and one expo isn’t nearly enough time, let alone a short conversation within an expo!

Beth Johnston, Myself and Sherri Miller

Newman Johnston and I

Another group from Hawaii whom I didn’t get the chance to review but did say hi to last year was Naliko Tea Gerden, now known as Tea Hawaii. It seems like Liam Ball of Naliko hooked up with a neat crowd. Tea Hawaii offers some neat products, an interesting brewing method where water is poured over the leaves and sifted into a drinking vessel. They also offer custom made tea cups made of clay which are all unique. The uniqueness is by virtue of a ‘slap’ to the clay as the potter is finishing spinning it which gives the cup its unique ‘wobble.’

Tea Hawaii Brewing to a Vessel

Another stop was made to a standby of mine. You can find Stash Tea products in nearly every grocery store in the United States. They’re a HUGE brand. However, they’re mostly known for their bagged teas. This is mighty unfortunate because their loose tea quality is actually pretty high. I always enjoy good conversation with Stash. I hope to cover more of their loose teas soon.

Stash Tea Products

I did also run into Wendy Weir of Libre Tea whose brewing vessel I reviewed some time ago and pit against other tea mugs in a showdown last year. This was her first World Tea Expo exhibiting. Honorable mention to my friends at Honey Stix whose products I hope to review soon. A shout to my buddies at Eastrise Trading who handle distribution for Foojoy in North America. Another honorable mention for the folks at Nucha, and David over at Gorreana Portuguese Teas.

I was disappointed not to see some of my favorite exhibitors from the past two years. Notable absences included Puripan Tea Garden, TeaGschwendner, PeLi Teas, Tavalon Tea, Village Tea Company, SAFA Himalaya and Catalyst Tea Enhancers. I missed you guys!

That’s pretty much it for Day 3. Feel free to go back and check out Day 1 and Day 2 of my 2011 World Tea Expo coverage.

Eastrise Trading Company

I ran into Martin from Village Tea Co. At the 2009 World Tea Expo and again at this year’s expo and I came away this year with some samples to try!

This Rooibos  is clearly fruity. You can smell it right away when you open the packaging (which is very nice by the way). Cut lemongrass leaf pieces, tiny little acai berries, sunflower petals and plenty or red rooibos make up a rustic visual of loose material for this tea. The aroma is at once sweet and tart with a hint of spiciness.

The liquor brews a nice dark amber and provides an aroma much much lighter than its dry counterpart. I found this a bit disappointing.

The flavor comes out mightily subdued. While the packaging suggests up to a five minute steep I found a minimum of seven minutes was required before sufficient flavor was imbued for my beverage.

I can certainly taste the lemongrass and the sour cherry flavoring once it’s been steeped long enough. I think something is overriding the acai which tends to dry the palate and be a bit tart when fresh.

I imagine a hearty helping of this tea would brew up very nicely iced. But as a hot tea, the recommended quantity and time to steep didn’t turn out sufficient for a hot tea in my experience.

I would recommend this tea to fans of fruity or flavored teas, light rooibos blends and acai under the caveat that you should add a little extra tea and steep a bit longer than the packaging recommends.

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Here’s the final installment of this three part recap to the activities and friends from this year’s expo!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Day 3

Ouch! So much ground to cover in a single day! Seven rows and we’ve only finished four! I gues it helps I didn’t attend any educational sessions this year. This would have been a five page set instead! Maybe next year.

First stop when the doors opened? Special Teas! This group has some rather fine offerings. Then, on to Florapharm. A bright logo, good quality product and an interesting name. This German company is housed in the US near my old stomping grounds in Owings Mills, MD. They even had a real live samovar (see last photo)!

Special Teas

Special Teas

Special Teas

Special Teas

Florapharm USA

Florapharm USA's samovar

Next I hit Eco Vita who do supplements and vitamins. Not really my scene. Then was Eastrise Trading Corp. who had the banner for Foojoy, a great chinese company who I had a good rapport with last year. No, on to Rooibos, Ltd. This company obviously specializes in Rooibos related teas.

Further down the isle I hit AOI Tea which specializes in Matcha. I had a little formal ceremony sit down with a great little Japanese woman who whisked the tea up in a little bowl for me to drink. It was extremely good!

Next was Harney & Sons. Last year I was lucky enough to meet both Michael and John Harney at their booth. This year, the booth was considerably smaller and the Harney’s themselves weren’t present. I was a little disappointed.

AOI Matcha

Moving on I had the pleasure of hitting Sugimoto America again. They won an award this year for their greeting cards with a pretty sealed teabag in it based on the occasion. That was kinda neat.

Tavalon Tea was next. Their packaging is some of the more unique I think. Clear plastic that’s UV coated so you can see the tea is nice. What’s great is that unlike other UV plastic tins, these don’t just have a window in the tin to see the tea. The container is the window to see the tea.

Continuing, Stash Tea was the following stop. Most of us know Stash Tea from their tea bags sold in grocery stores and such. However, they have some great loose teas, and the new Chanakara line Cindy Harling showed me is really great, and available loose!

Oh My Gosh! PeLi Teas! The wonderful 2009 Pu’erh they had was equally pleasant in a tea bag as it was loose. Just incredible! Maeda-En was great as usual. With their Green Tea Mochi and their Iced Green Tea. Delicious!

What the heck is up with Sam Ritchey and his hair over at TeaGschwendner! That guys knows how to liven it up something real! A stop off at MarketSpice located in Pike Place in Seattle and a taste of Hojicha Gelee (which I’ll review down the road) at The Green Teaist and we close out the fifth row!

What a hectic run! But we’re only about a third of the way through our day! Will I be able to make it through the seventh row in time for closing? Follow along and we’ll see!

PeLi Teas

PeLi Teas

Maeda En

The Green Teaist

The Green Teaist

There’s a LOT going on here in the sixth row! Plenty to see. Let’s get started!

First stop? The Taiwan Tea Manufacturer’s Association. This is a conglomerated booth area made up of seven or eight Taiwanese tea companies all in one place. They’re almost independent of the expo! Too much to describe here. There’s lots of good stuff!

What’s this!?! Hawiian grown tea! I’ve known about the Hawaii projects for a while now, but it failed to register that anyone was close enough to production. Well, Liam Ball over at Na Liko Tea certainly is! The Hawaiian Oolong was spectacular. This is on top of being a first year production from plants just five years old! They really nailed it!

Tisano was next. They make cacao stuff. In this case their product is made from the outer shells of the cacao beans. This Equadoran product is pretty good actually and tastes like a hot chocolate but not as rich. The company actually helps in the picking and shipping processes for their product and gives some proceeds back to the community and growers from each sale.

Na Liko Tea from Hawaii

Na Liko Tea from Hawaii

Tisano Cacao Tea

Just across the split from Tisano… was Zealong, the New Zealand Oolong people. If you haven’t tried this stuff, seriously give it a go. I did. I’ll have a formal review up soemtime soon. Zealong has some of the best marketing this year I think, and their packaging is simply beautiful! Tulsi Organics across the walkway was another herbal beverages company. There seem to be plenty of these this year.

Time to take a peek at one of my favorite accessory makers… FORLIFE! Great looking stuff as always! Vibrant colors, unique styles. Good stuff.

On to Naivetea. I really like this brand’s identity. Clean and refined but with a slightly fancy augmentation. Always friendly, the couple who run this company are somehow calming to me. It could be the tea too, but there’s something about this fun pair from California!

Zealong New Zealand Oolong

Tulsi Organics

Naivetea

Next up? Hankook Tea who have some simple but nice packaging, and they’re representing Korean teas which are seriously under-represented in the industry. You go guys! On to Takeya USA! These guys make some really swell tea brewer jugs! Some of these are for chilled teas, and others are for hot teas. Some for large quantities and others for just a cup or two. You should check them out!

Keeping up the pace we have Shang Ri La Tea and Hancha Tea another company I remember from last year who has nice clean package design. A trip to Teas Etc. rounds out the 6th row. I mean what would the expo be without Beth and Newman Johnston!

Time for the final row already!?! The Expo can’t be over yet!?! I mean c’mon!

Takeya

Teas Etc

Teas Etc

Row seven is shorter and has less going on. I did run into Jason O. Walker from Walker Tea Review whom I met last year. If I’d been swifter maybe I’d have caught him before he was closing up. Maybe I could have even been in one of his review videos! That would have been killer!

A stop by the World Tea News booth was empty. All that was left was Torn Ranch.

I did make my way back to the International Tea Importers booth to grab a copy of the New Tea Dictionary and a photo-op with the author Mr. James Norwood Pratt.

Disappointed row 7 didn’t have more going on? Oh, fine! There was this row of new product displays. Maybe you’d like to see those, yeah? Here you go, I’ll leave you with these. I hope you enjoyed my coverage of the expo as much as I did getting to go again.

Me sniffing some Himalayan Tips

QTrade Teas & Herbs

Village Tea Mini Canisters

Tea friends Make a Toast

Tea Friends at Lotus of Siam for Dinner

ITO EN Bench Made of Recycled Tea

More Delicious Tea

David Smith Tea Blender

In order to get the discount, you must enter the following code: vtcteaguy10

This discount was presumably sparked by my review of this tea last week. Apparently I can save you money! Who Knew!

One thing anyone who’s ever eaten sushi with me knows… I hate ginger. Somehow it tastes like dish soap to me and I can never get passed it. I only use it in the most extreme of wasabi circumstances!

This certified organic green tea has a Chinese Guo Lu base and is blended with ginger, so you wouldn’t guess that I like it. But I do.

It could be the addition of the lemongrass or maybe the lemon mytle… or maybe I just like lemon flavored soap… who knows. But it works!

At roughly $4 an ounce this tea is not overly expensive. Village Tea Co.’s unique packaging has the loose material separated into two larger bags in the canister and they’re kind enough to include a number of disposable tea bags for easy clean-up if you don’t happen to have an infuser handy.

The loose mixture looks like a combination of grass clippings, chives, and diced ginger. It’s actually ratherneat to look at. The aroma is strong enough to smell as soon as you open the package, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s at just the right level for appreciation.

The lemon pucker in the flavor comes through nicely but is subdued by the ginger in a perfectly harmonious composition I have to commend Martin of Village Tea Co. for putting together.

The liquor comes out a nice honeyed yellow-orange and only minimal sediment seems to appear. Quite nice for a tisane of this kind.

I would recommend this as a daily tea for those like Japanese bancha, gunpowder greens, or Yerba Mate’.

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