On the last day of Hot Tea Month, I attended the
3rd Annual Toronto Tea Festival. I was unable to attend the previous festivals so I was extremely excited to finally go this year.
Isn't it amazing how tea brings together people from all ages and cultures? Large crowds make me feel claustrophobic but I kept calm and drank tea!
Kevin Gascoyne, a tea taster from
Camellia Sinensis Tea Houses with over 20 years' experience of traveling to Asia to purchase teas, delivered a fun and enlightening 1-hour presentation on tea basics. The science nerd in me particularly enjoyed hearing about his research team's experiments which debunked common myths about the antioxidants and caffeine levels in different types of teas.
The Korean tea ceremony was performed by Sun-hee Jung (middle table) and her two trainees.
The Chinese Tea Ceremony was performed by Sabrina Chen. The performers' graceful and fluid movements were impressive. There was also a Japanese Tea Ceremony, but we didn't have an opportunity to view it. Now we move from the ancient cultural ceremonies...
to the sci-fi future of tea brewing...Yes, there's an app for that:
teaBOT!
The tablet is used to customize your own blend of tea. The teas are dispensed through the main funnel, while the hot water is delivered through the metal spigot. The owners of teaBOT hope to set up these self-serve tea kiosks around the greater Toronto area sometime in the near future.
With over 40 (mostly Canadian-based) exhibitors of teas, teawares, tea products, and snacks, the selections were overwhelming! From top to bottom:
Lemon Lily,
Capital Tea,
Samadhi Tea House.
From top to bottom:
Majesteas,
Riston Tea,
Tao Tea.
Clockwise from top right:
3 Teas, Momo Tea,
Basilur Tea (which had the prettiest tea canisters at the festival!)
From top to bottom:
King's Cafe,
T by Daniel,
The Tea Emporium.
Tea and All Its Splendour
Our entry ticket included one free tasting cup which we definitely put to good use! I usually gravitate towards flavoured teas so to expand my palate, I tried some oolong teas: Capital Tea's Alishan Jin Xuan (left) and Majesteas' Shangri La (right). I prefered the Shangri La because of its slight fruity taste.
Arsh Inc.'s green tea (left) was okay. The hot cinnamon spice black tea from Tea Leaves Tea Tasting Bar tasted exactly like cinnamon heart candies.
We also had samples from Tao Tea: Ginger and Tangerine herbal infusions (top) and Blueberry Rooibos (bottom; too tart to my liking!).
Tea-Ara (cute name!) was also serving samples of their herbal infusions and rooibos which would also taste good iced.
To determine which pu-erh we should sample, the vendor (I can't recall the company's name) touched our hands. My mom got white pu-erh, while I was good for any of the pu-erh teas...I ended up tasting the white pu-erh too which was alright.
There was nary a sight of dainty English-style bone china tea sets...
...but there were Chinese-style teawares galore!
For the trendy and hip tea drinkers:
Grosche's modern glass teawares.
Of course no tea is complete without the proper snack! We brought home some of
Sugar Peony's tea-infused macarons (top). The scones (bottom) enticed people to visit
T-Bud's Tea Lounge and Creperie for the perfect afternoon tea experience. We also tried
Sprucewood's Shortbread Cookies but I was too busy stuffing myself with the yummy cookies to take a photo.
Now I exercised GREAT RESTRAINT and came home with a modest(ish) loot of tea goodies: 3 teas (Basilur's White Moon green tea; Lemon Lily's Cherry Blossom green tea; Riston's chocolate truffle black tea); a Tea book autographed by Kevin Gascoyne (one of the co-authors);
Bare English & Co.'s passionfruit hand and body cream; Sprucewood's maple and lemon shortbread cookies; and Sugar and Peony's macarons. The bag and glass cup were complimentary.
My favourite purchase was Riston's Margaret tea--a black tea blend with chocolate and Irish cream. I was sold as soon as I saw it because:
a) the tea shared my name (although I bear no resemblance to the doll on the photo!);
b) the tin was purple;
c) the chocolate flavour (and it smelled heavenly too!).
I'm already looking forward to next year's tea festival!
This week, I'm joining the following parties:
