The tea festival this year was really fun! It was in one of the buildings at Seattle Center and as you entered you were greeted by the Tea Lady’s teapot. The festival was set up differently than last year and was in a different location, so it was difficult for us to determine if there were more vendors than last year. There were certainly some we hadn’t seen last year, which was exciting. When we entered the pavilion, we paid our $10 donation and received a little porcelain tasting cup and a reusable tote bag (which ended up holding our tea). We tried to go through the booths systematically so as not to miss anything and began the tasting. We stopped at the Tea Lady’s booth to get some “Evening in Missoula” for my dad. It’s an herbal tea with a whole bunch of different tasty herbs (too many to list here) and my dad happens to love it. We had gotten it last year from their booth and wanted to make sure to return. Melinda, one of the people working the booth, was very kind and we had a nice chat. Part of the Tea Lady display:
We also made sure to check out the Tao of Tea, a Portland-based tea company that sells some of Eric’s favorite tea. He’s been on a Chinese black tea kick and has been honing his taste buds to discover some of the best tea he’s ever had. We usually order Tao of Tea cans of loose leaf online, but it was a treat to get to talk to the lovely woman who was selling at their booth. We had a great conversation with her and plan to go to Portland to the Chinese tea garden sometime soon. The month of October is filled with special events, apparently. Eric ended up getting a traditional Chinese tea cake (aged and pressed together tea leaves), which he is excited to try. No pictures from this booth because we were so engrossed in chatting and tasting.
I was excited to go to the Perennial Tea Room’s booth because they had my favorite tea from last year’s festival–a Winter Chocolate Spice black tea:
Unfortunately, they only had sample-size bags, so I will have to go their shop to get more. Their shop is located in Post Alley at the Pike Place Market and the Winter Chocolate Spice is seasonal, so I’m going to try to make it down to Post Alley this week to buy a large supply of this tea while they have it.
The only other tea we bought was called Saint Marc’s and is a fruity black tea blend. The reason we got it is that it tasted very similar to Twining’s Four Red Fruits black tea, which is one of my all-time favorites, but which is very difficult to find in shops. We were introduced to Four Red Fruits when my sister and I travelled to Italy about 10 years ago to visit our Italian exchange student brother, Giorgio, in Milan. Loved this tea and was excited to find something similar.
Other things of note in the festival. Choice Tea, which has one of my favorite peppermint teas:
Someone was selling handmade tea cozies:
And some booths’ displays were quite aesthetically pleasing. I loved these little bottles filled with tea leaves:
Overall, it was quite a successful and enjoyable outing. We did not buy nearly as much tea as we did last year, but we ended up with only the tea that we knew we would love. We came home and promptly made tea to eat with some cookies I had made on Friday night.
Are any of you as crazy about tea as I am? Did any of you make it out to the tea festival this weekend?
Follow
