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The Summer version of the World Tea Expo was held June 24-26, 2011, in Las Vegas, Nevada USA.
Each summer a large contingent of representatives from the different sectors of the worldwide tea industry converges in Las Vegas for World Tea Expo. There are other large tea-industry trade shows held throughout the year, but World Tea Expo is the largest in the United States. This annual event has grown considerably since its inaugural year in 2003, when there were far fewer exhibitors and visitors, and the show was called “Take Me 2 Tea.” This year boasted over 200 exhibitors, with entire aisles on the show floor (or “Pavilions” depending on where and how they were positioned) dedicated to the tea industries and major growing regions of China, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, and India. Other significant regions were well-represented also, including Japan, Korea, Kenya and Indonesia, and many of the major specialty tea purveyors based in the United States had an active and prominent presence, both as exhibitors and as presenters.
Attendees flow into the Expo as the doors open.
As an industry-focused trade show, World Tea Expo is primarily geared towards tea professionals and the media, although the show’s appeal reaches beyond people currently employed in the tea business. It is a grand passion for the leaf which brings such a diverse assembly of people together in the desert each year. Like last year, attendees in June 2011 included aspiring entrepreneurs going through New Business Boot Camp, tea people seeking to further their knowledge through Specialty Tea Institute (STI) Certification, seasoned industry experts like Nigel Melican and James Norwood Pratt, and leaders in the US specialty tea industry like Beth Johnston of Teas Etc., and Joshua Kaiser of Rishi Tea. The commonality among all of the people at the show is an open amiability and air of cooperation, and a genuine desire to network, teach, learn, and experience.
For a full week — including two days of STI events on either side of the three-day Expo — attendees were presented with a host of opportunities to learn more about tea and the tea industry. The educational conference included the New Business Boot Camp, Executive and Technical Series, and the Core Conference seminars. In more hands-on types of tea education, there were workshops and focused tea tastings.
A beautiful array of matcha.
On the Expo floor there were displays and demonstrations of the latest processing and packaging machinery alongside traditional tea wares and storage. Naturally, there was an enormous variety in the styles and cultural associations of tea and tea products. There were also numerous casual opportunities to taste a wide variety of tea and tea-related foods and beverages at the booths of the many tea vendors on the show floor. There were more exhibitors at the Expo this year, and from my perspective there was a higher overall quality level of teas and tea-related products on display, as compared to last year.
Tasting Ruby18 with Bill Waddington at the Taiwan Pavilion
One highlight among the vast sea of exhibitors on the Expo floor was the Taiwan Pavilion, where Thomas Shu and his wife Josephine Pan hosted tastings and demonstrations. They were aided by their compatriots in the Taiwanese tea industry and at one of the tastings I attended, by Bill Waddington of Tea Source, who waxed poetically about the special Taiwanese varietal developed in Taiwan in the ’80s named Ruby18. A few lucky visitors to the booth were also given the rare opportunity to hear Thomas Shu sing Hakka songs during the course of his presentations, one of which was about Baozhong (Pouchong).
One of the events during the Expo that I found considerably more interesting and valuable than I expected was the Keynote address by Chuck Underwood, Founder and Principal of The Generational Imperative. His talk, which was geared towards the people in the business of selling tea and tea-related experiences directly to consumers, very succinctly laid out the primary categorizations for consumers based on their age range, and spoke to the values and interests of each group: how they differed and how they aligned. The Generational Imperative website has a broad overview of the definitions of “America’s Living Generations” that Mr. Underwood discussed. Rather than being a reduction of people into broad and meaningless generalizations, the summaries provided valuable insight into what elements of products appeal to different cross-sections of the American public.
a very colorful booth of tea ware
In the midst of all of the products and talk about ways to sell stuff to tea drinkers, one of the most enjoyable elements of the experience is the social aspect. I have met some really fabulous people in the world of tea, and it is great to get to talk to so many of them over the course of a few short days. For many of us who mainly interact with each other online due to geographic constraints, the Expo is the one time during the year that we get to see many our friends in the tea world in person. It is also a chance to meet some of the people we have only met previously through the virtual worlds of social media. I believe that attending the Expo is an experience that nearly any person seriously immersed into the world of tea would find valuable and enjoyable. Maybe I’ll see you there next year!
Editor’s note: Didn’t get to the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas in June? Don’t worry. Another one is scheduled for early September in Philadelphia. See the WTE website for details.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
I’m sure this won’t be the first time you’ve seen a discussion about the importance of using the right water for tea. In fact, there have been similar posts on this very blog, but it’s an issue important enough to bear repeating. Tea is, of course, largely water by volume, so it makes sense that the water you use to make your tea has a significant impact on it. Water quality varies considerably from place to place, but even if the water coming out of a tap is perfectly safe and tastes fine, that doesn’t mean it’s going to produce a good tasting cup of tea.
Fresh Water Fountain
Tea leaves also vary in their sensitivity levels, and this should be taken into account when deciding what kind of water to use. A delicate, pure leaf white tea, for example, is going to be considerably more sensitive to water quality than a strongly brewed Earl Grey black tea. In other words, you are going to be more likely to taste the difference in the brewed tea when you’re drinking a tea that is more delicate. Japanese green teas are also particularly sensitive to water type.
Ideally, and traditionally, the best water for brewing tea is pure spring water. Spring water is almost always available in grocery stores, and ranges in price from quite reasonable, like Crystal Geyser, to impractically expensive, such as Evian and more obscure brands of water. The availability of larger containers is also a consideration, as you’re not going to want to have to buy a ton of little bottles just to keep enough water on hand, not to mention the negative environmental impact of all that plastic waste.
It is also important to recognize the difference between bottled waters that are purified tap water, and waters that are from pure, natural sources. If you prefer purified water, which is often purified with the use of charcoal filtering, you are probably better off filtering the water yourself, using a Britta or Pure water filter, which will be more economical than buying (and lugging around) containers of water purified for you by a company. If you prefer glacial, artesian well or spring water, read your packaging very carefully and make sure that you are getting what you expect.
And know that just because a package states that the contents are pure spring water, this doesn’t mean that it will taste good to you. I bought some water a couple of weeks ago that was labeled “pure spring water” and used it for brewing some lightly-oxidized Dong Ding Oolong tea. The tea did not taste as good as it should have, but while I was trying to determine the reason, I drank some of the water by itself, and it tasted horrible to me. If you don’t like the way a brand tastes as a simple glass of water, you’re really not going to like the effect it has on your brewed tea unless the tea is strong and overpowering enough to compensate.
Since individual people have different tastes, the ideal way to determine the best water is to research and to experiment. Try brewing the same tea with three different water types: straight tap water, charcoal-filtered tap water, and pure spring water. See if you can detect the difference, and see what you like best. This will be most effective if you can do it with another person and do your taste testing blind, which will eliminate your assumptions about what tastes best. I don’t personally know of anyone who will fiercely defend tap water as perfect for brewing tea, but if you can’t taste the difference yourself, there’s no reason to use anything else. But for most people the difference is worth paying attention to, and if you’re accustomed to tap water, changing to a purer water will enhance your tea drinking experience considerably.
Check out Gongfu Girl’s blog for more interesting tea-tips!
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
This is a follow-up to the article that I wrote on the dangers of sun tea, The Dark Side of Sun Tea, this past June. While I still hold that it’s wise to avoid making tea by this method, there is less clear evidence about the topic than I had previously been led to believe. Interestingly, although many sources stated that the Center for Disease Control had published a position that sun tea was unsafe, the CDC itself denies this.
Cold Brew Tea
As part of my follow-up research I wrote to the CDC directly, asking for confirmation or denial of their position. This is my email to them:
To: cdcinfo@cdc.gov
Subject: Question about Alcaligenes viscolactis in “sun tea”Dear Sir or Madam, Does the Center For Disease Control have an official policy on “sun tea,” the practice of brewing tea in glass jars set outside in the sun for several hours? Colorado State’s “Safe Food News” states that it is an unsafe practice due to the possible growth of Alcaligenes viscolactis because the water does not reach a high enough temperature to kill the bacteria. There are a lot of anecdotal comments throughout the tea industry and other places that state that the CDC has deemed sun tea as unsafe, including on Snopes.com, but I have been unable to find any clear, reliable statement that this is the case directly from the CDC itself. On my tea blog and as a guest writer on another tea blog I wrote that this was an unsafe practice even if the bacterial risk was not very big. Any information you could provide me would be greatly appreciated. As someone who writes a blog about tea and tea practices I feel an obligation to keep my readership well informed with accurate and scientifically verifiable information. This is an issue that has conflicting and incomplete information, at least in what I have been able to find so far. I hold that it is unwise to make sun tea due to the risk of bacteria, but I would like some additional official support (or denial) for this position.
[signed]
I couple of weeks later I received a brief, but informative response from a Public Affairs representative for the CDC:
The short answer is, we don’t know. I circulated your query and so far none of our scientists have either worked or are familiar with anyone who has conducted research on this topic. I will keep you posted if I find out anything new…
Regards,
Arleen Porcell-Pharr, MS, APR
Public Affairs Specialist
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, GA 30333
404-639-7285
fyd4@cdc.gov
I appreciate the CDC taking the time to respond to my inquiry, and I find it quite curious that so many people were citing studies and/or an official CDC policy statement that simply does not exist. The other curious thing about this is that Snopes.com, which exists entirely for the purpose of debunking misinformation and confirming accurate information, was one of the sources citing the CDC’s findings that sun tea was unsafe. I contacted Snopes.com for a response to this as well, but received no response from them.
Iced Tea
Regardless of all of the confusion, there’s no good reason to continue to make tea outdoors in the sunshine when cold-brewing is safer and results in tea that tastes as good or better. Good quality Ceylon teas work particularly well for this. But the jury is still out on whether sun tea can be proven to be unsafe scientifically – or even anecdotally. It seems unlikely that any studies will be done to confirm or deny this any time soon.
There is an additional article available on TeaGeek.net on this topic and the unreliability of information sources that you may want to read also.
Check out Gongfu Girl’s blog for more informative articles!
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
One of the most popular teas in summer is “sun tea” – tea that is brewed by leaving a clear container with tea in it out in the sun for a few hours. While this has a certain appeal because it is such an easy process, not to mention the fact that tea looks awfully pretty in the sunlight, it bears some risks. The essential problem with brewing tea using this method is that sun tea will not get hotter than 130 degrees fahrenheit (54.44 C), which is not hot enough to kill bacteria in the water or in the tea leaves. Standard brewing processes for hot tea are always hot enough to ensure that any undesirable microbes are killed, eliminating this risk. In addition to the insufficient heat, sun tea generally sits around for a lot longer than hot tea, giving the bacteria a chance to multiply and become problematic. In essence, the sun tea method is a lot more like making tea in a contaminated Petri dish than a teapot.
“Using the natural rays of the sun to make tea is fun and popular in the summer. However, using such a method to make tea is highly discouraged. Sun tea is the perfect medium for bacteria to grow. If the sun tea has a thick or syrupy appearance, it may be due to the presence of a ropy bacteria called Alcaligenes viscolactis. Ropy bacteria are commonly found in soil and water.”
The quote above is from Is Sun Tea Safe?, on the Colorado State University Extension SafeFood Rapid Response Network.
Of course, every summer people brew and drink gallons and gallons of sun tea and do not get sick. This does not mean that there is no risk. If you’re okay with the possibility of stringy rope-like bacteria breeding in the tea you drink then there’s no reason to change your ways. But I don’t see much reason to continue using this method after finding out about its inherent dangers, even if the statistical risk of illness is not great. Plus there are excellent alternatives for making iced tea.
Boiling the water before you make sun tea can prevent the bacterial risk, but once you’ve gone to that effort you might as well just hot brew the tea in the normal fashion and then cool it in the refrigerator. But if your goal is to avoid using the stove on hot days, an ideal solution is to cold-brew your tea. I believe that there is a common misperception that tea leaves require boiling, or at least very hot, water to release their flavors into the water and transform it into tea. The reality is that steeping tea leaves in cold water for a few hours in the refrigerator produces excellent tasting cold tea. This method also works quite well for many tisanes (non-tea infusions). I usually use a Mason jar with loose leaf tea and then strain the tea into a second Mason jar when it is sufficiently steeped, usually about six hours. This time can be longer or shorter depending on how strong you prefer your tea and you can tell by the color when it’s ready.
What it all boils down to (or doesn’t boil at all in this case) is that there’s really no compelling reason to make sun tea when you want to drink iced tea. You can take those same containers you’d put out on your porch and put them directly into your refrigerator instead. The tea tastes every bit as good or better and it’s much safer. While drinking tea contaminated with Alcaligenes viscolactis will just make you sick, not kill you, it seems preferable to avoid any possibility of its stringy, ropy presence in your glass of tea.
If you need more evidence, Snopes.com, the reliable source for verifying or dispelling rumors and urban legends, supports the view that sun tea is unsafe.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Despite its humble appearance and role as default teapot in so many English cupboards, the Brown Betty is a much more interesting piece of tea ware than one might assume.
The ancestral forms of the Brown Betty came into production and use in England near the close of the seventeenth century, when craftsmen began using the unique red clay found in the Bradell Woods area of Stoke-on-Trent to fashion into teapots. The application of the special Rockinham glaze, which gives the Brown Betty its characteristic namesake brown, and further refinements in the rounded shape of the main bowl area resulted in the teapot we know today. The device’s current, essentially unchanged form was solidified during the reign of Queen Victoria, as tea seeped out from the aristocracy to the common man and tea consumption in England grew exponentially.
Several decades earlier in England tea had been largely unavailable to the underclasses because of its high cost and the high cost of the tea wares required for preparing and drinking it. This changed during the course of the 19th century with further expansion of the British Empire, which resulted in lower costs of goods sent back from the territories exploited by British merchants and strong-armed by the British military. Importantly, the establishment of tea plantations in the Indian Sub-continent brought down the cost of tea considerably. In addition, more cost-effective industrial manufacturing processes brought the cost of teapots and tea cups down as well.
There are, of course, a number of famous ceramics manufacturers in England. Cauldon Ceramics, who hold exclusive rights for manufacturing the Brown Betty, is just one of them. In contrast, some of the other companies, like Wedgwood and Spode for example, concentrated their production on fine porcelain and bone china, marketing more delicate and expensive types of teaware and dinnerware, while the makers of the Brown Betty kept it much more utilitarian and functional in appearance.
Aside from all of that history and background, the characteristic of the Brown Betty that should be most important to tea drinkers is that it brews and serves tea exceptionally well. Anyone with even a marginally serious interest in drinking English style teas should own one. They’re not fancy, or necessarily elegant in appearance, but they’re damned good teapots. The rounded shape of the teapot is particularly good for steeping loose leaf tea. It is said that the steeping leaves swirl around inside of the bowl of the pot, which might be true, although it’s a hard thing to prove (or see). But one thing that is much more evident is the way that the pot retains heat. The high heat retention brews better tea, and the pot keeps it hot longer after it’s finished steeping. A full pot of tea in a Brown Betty sitting out on a table will stay quite drinkably warm for longer than you’d expect, varying with the ambient temperature of the room. Using a tea cozy would probably help retain the heat even longer, if you were the type to use one.
These are teapots made out of good materials. The Rockingham glaze is strong and durable, and it is also particularly shiny and attractive. One of the accompanying photographs shows the red of the unglazed clay, on the edge of the lid off the pot, one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Brown Betty. The whole feels solid and well constructed.
Brown Betty teapots are surprisingly inexpensive, although it can be hard to locate authentic examples. This is to be expected when, in spite of the teapot’s fame and ubiquity, all production output comes from a single factory. Since the real thing can be scarce frauds are quite common. Do not be fooled by a plain brown ceramic teapot with deceptive labeling! While ordinary generic ceramic teapots are fine, they do not have the exceptional qualities of a genuine Brown Betty. If the teapot doesn’t have a British flag sticker on it and doesn’t have “Cauldon” and “Made in England” on the bottom it’s not the genuine article and will fall short of expectations.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
A tremendous amount of media attention has been devoted to green tea in the past few years, most of it centered around claims that everyone should drink gallons of it per day for health reasons. The overall impact of this hype is probably good since it may lead consumers to try some teas that might otherwise be largely undiscovered in Western countries, but if those discoveries are not accompanied by attention to proper brewing techniques the result can be too many cups of unpleasant green tea, swallowed down stoically, like medicine.
Japanese green teas are particularly easy to brew poorly, most commonly by using boiling tap water, which scalds the leaf and produces a bitter liquor. Many Japanese green teas are delicate, and they can be challenging, increasingly so the further you go up the cost ladder. But with a bit of knowledge and a little more care you can brew up a green tea you will enjoy drinking.
Cast Iron Teapot
Japan produces many different types of green teas, from roasted Hojicha to the finely powdered Matcha used in the tea ceremony, but this discussion will focus on a brief description of just three of the more easily obtainable types and how best to prepare them. With any of these teas use the best water available. I prefer pure spring water. While Japanese green teas can be brewed in porcelain, glass or ceramic teapots they are improved by brewing in cast iron teapot. Tokoname clay pots are also suitable, but the higher quality, hand-crafted pots can be quite costly. Cast iron teapots are affordable, attractive and reliable and the ferric content reacts positively with the water and tea, resulting in a mellower brew. (Caution: using a cast iron tea for brewing other types of teas, like harsh English-style black teas, will ruin it.)
Sencha is a standard type of Japanese green tea. It is what will usually be in a package of generically labeled “green tea” if it is from Japan. Naturally, if you purchase a higher grade of loose leaf Sencha you will end up with a much nicer cup of tea. Use water at about 160-170 degrees and steep for 1-3 minutes, depending on personal preference. If you do not have a variable temperature water kettle or a thermometer you can take the water off boil and let it sit for about two minutes before pouring over the leaves. You can also cool it by pouring it into back and forth into different containers. The taste of scorched green tea is bitter and terrible and sadly all too common so it is something you want to avoid. Pre-moistening your tea with a little fresh water before pouring the hot water over it can help prevent burning the leaf, or pour along the side of your pot rather than directly onto the leaf. A well brewed cup of Sencha is sweet and strong, and not bitter. If you don’t like the taste, experiment with water temperature and amount of leaf.
Genmaicha is Sencha (or Bancha) with the addition of roasted, puffed brown rice. Some varieties are also supplemented with a dusting of Matcha. The addition of rice lends the tea a smooth, mild, earthy quality. Genmaicha is frequently the type of tea you will be served in a Japanese restaurant if you request “green tea,” or just “tea.” It can be brewed hotter than other Japanese green teas. Generally around 190 degrees is good, but it can stand up to boiling water. Brew times will vary depending on preference, but 1-3 minutes is usually good.
Of these three teas, Gyokuro is the most delicate. Grown under shade, the Gyokuro leaf is very green and brews into a very vegetal, bright tasting tea. Use water no hotter than 140 degrees and steep for a very short time: 30 seconds to a minute. The taste can take some getting used to, but if you take the time to accustom your palate to this very Spring-like tea you may find it quite wonderful.
One thing to keep in mind is that Japanese green teas are particularly sensitive to air and age. They must be kept cool and dry in an airtight container. It is vastly preferable to order small quantities more frequently than to drink stale teas.
Drinking Japanese green teas can be quite a rewarding experience, not because you’ll suddenly be impervious to all forms of disease or gain the ability to fly, but because the teas themselves are so interesting and pleasant in your cup!
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
If you have ever immersed yourself into the exciting world of higher quality teas, you will surely have heard frequent recommendations to avoid tea bags in favor of loose leaf teas. This is sound advice, and there are many reasons for it.
One of the most pragmatic and somewhat obvious reasons for this is a basic quality issue. Generally, if a tea is stuffed into tea bags and sold in a grocery store for less than three dollars a box, it’s unlikely to be a good tasting or fresh tea.
Loose Soom Estate Tea
With the exception of a few types of recently designed roomier and more transparent bag types, tea bags prevent seeing and smelling the quality of the tea and the tea used in mass market factory produced tea bags is the lowest quality you can find. It is often called “floor sweepings” among people for whom these cheap teas are held in contempt. Basically, if you want to be able to evaluate the quality of the leaf, you need to be able to see and smell it as well as taste what it brews into.
“The Agony of the Leaves” is the term used to indicate the unfurling of the tea leaf during steeping. This can be quite a dramatic and beautiful stage in the brewing of tea, and with some teas it is one that can be quite wonderful to watch if the tea is brewed in a glass vessel. This is an important element of the process, and one that is severely compromised if the tea is constrained in a tea bag. The tea is unable to fully expand and move in the hot water, limiting its potential for releasing flavor. One thing you never want to subject a tea leaf to is constraining its expansion during brewing.
Loose White Tea
Plus, do you really want to drink an infusion of paper, steel staple, tea and ink? I can’t cite any scientific studies showing that these non-tea elements have a significant effect on the taste of the tea, but they certainly compromise the purity of the brew. That said, there are some companies that use unbleached paper or other safer materials and do not use staples, but there are still materials mixed in with the tea that are not tea and they’re pieces of stuff that I surely don’t want it my tea cup.
While there are a few companies putting higher quality teas into tea bags that have been designed to allow for more room and enable the consumer to see the contents, it is a very good general rule to favor loose leaf teas over teas in bags. You’ll get a better product and better results and you’ll be more able to see and appreciate the brewing process itself, and I would always caution against sacrificing quality for convenience.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
