The San Francisco International Tea Festival, open to tea lovers outside the professional tea trade, has succeeded for the second year in a row. Located in the historic Ferry Building, the festival drew almost a thousand local tea-lovers. Attendees received a small bag of promotional handouts, a few samples of tea, and an official tasting cup, at the festival entrance.
Tea vendors from all over the United States, and some international tea merchants, set up exhibits of their newest and most popular products and offered tastings of their teas to the attendees. Experts, including San Francisco’s Roy Fong of Imperial Tea Court, and James Norwood Pratt, author of The Tea Lover’s Treasury and other books, gave lectures and hosted private tea tastings. James Norwood Pratt and Babette Donaldson, author of the Emma Lea’s Tea series of children’s books, were available for autographs.
For more information about this year's festival, click here. The San Francisco International Tea Festival is a great event for Bay Area tea-lovers, and it’s small enough that you can see everything in about 2 hours. It is easily accessible by BART (Embarcadero station) and MUNI, and while it takes 2 hours to get there from San Jose on public transportation, the festival makes for a fun day out in The City, meeting and chatting with other local tea lovers. It is expected to return to San Francisco in 2014!
Copyright 2013, Elizabeth Urbach
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For more information:
San Francisco International Tea Festival website
James Norwood Pratt website
Imperial Tea Court website
Babette Donaldson website
“Where to buy books about tea in San Jose”
“5 books that should be on the tea-lover’s bookshelf”
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