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I believe the tea expo has been going on since 2003, I hadn’t been until this year. I flew into Atlanta, lovingly called the “ATL” by those that live there. Arriving late, at 3am, after waiting out the delayed departures leaving LGA. Checked into the Westin, formerly the Peachtree Plaza, and headed straight to bed.
4 hours of sleep later, I met up with my business partner and headed to the expo, located at the World Congress Center. There’s no actual food in downtown Atlanta in the early morning, the closest thing I found was a breakfast wrap at the CNN Center food court. I paired it with a delicious iced tea, the heat of the morning making the cup condensate instantly.
The tea expo itself had seminars you could take in the mornings on topics from “how to write a press release” to “ethical sourcing.” For more details, go onto their site. The afternoon was aimed at walking the floor and seeing everyone’s different wares. From this I found there are really two main camps, either eastern or western, which really translates into the gaiwan versus the brown betty. It was good to see old friends and meet new ones. I’m very interested in promoting the “all boats rise” philosophy and was happy to find that attitude in abundance.
Highlights: the sencha at The Tao of Tea (and catching up on Portland), the new matcha latte at Ito En (its got sugar, but goodness it’s good, like liquid green tea ice cream), Hydrangea tea (finally something to do with the giant one that grows in my parent’s yard), Korean matcha at Hankook Tea Company, learning about Eastern European herbals from Mark of Mem Herbals, attending Aiya’s matcha presentation, the exuberance of the folks at Tea Garden and finally meeting my hero Norwood Pratt.
Most of the attendees seemed like restaurant or café owners looking to connect with vendors. Also, I met a few folks in the beginning stages of their own tea ventures.
I think the Expo has some work to do, the quality was all over the place, I think they could tighten things up a bit. Also there was such a real disconnect between tea and the expo surroundings of the convention building itself. This is bound to happen, but there really was no real food to eat. It was all fast-food style. I’d like to see healthy food vendors at next year’s event. Bring in some locals.
Ok, that’s a very quick review of the event, and I am of course forgetting things and leaving out wonderful things. Go next year, help encourage this even to become better and better.
Jelly, the brilliant idea from Amit Gupta and Luke Crawford, is a bi-weekly work sessions hosted at Amit’s NYC apartment. I think it started because they were tired of working at home, by themselves, without the energy of collaboration. So, they started inviting people over. It’s really cool and I recommend signing up. I went yesterday and talked teapot designs with Joey Roth and got programming wisdom from Peter Kirn and Alex Linsker.
