Coffee & Tea Festival: Ito En & Tafu

Two major Japanese tea companies were represented at the 2008 NYC Coffee and Tea Festival: Ito En and Tafu.

Ito En was unveiling two new products, Mint Green in their Teas Tea line and Oi Ocha, which is the #1 selling RTD (Ready-to-Drink, a.k.a. "bottled" or "canned," depending on the packaging method) tea in Japan and was only available in specialty stores in the US until now. The Mint Green seems like a good tea for soothing the stomach or for a new tea drinker. The Oi Ocha is a robust tea, best-suited for more serious tea drinkers. It is double brewed for maximum catechins and a strong umami (astringent) taste.
Oishi! <--Japanese for "delicious."

Tafu was promoting their NYC tearoom, which serves a variety of teas and tea sweets. Their tea sweets are made by Kyotofu, which (of course) serves their tea and uses their tea to make delicious tea sweets (think white chocolate matcha cupcakes, black sesame sweet tofu with houjicha green tea sauce). They also flew in their 7th generation tea master, who spoke at several events and freshly roasted houjicha especially for the event. (I bought some. It's fantastic.)


Matcha cupcake with lecture notes and some sequins on one of my salwar kameez (tunic, pants, and scarf outfits) from India





Tafu's 7th generation tea master roasting houjicha





Tomorrow, I'll talk about some of the lectures at the Coffee and Tea Festival. Until then, drink up!

Post-Coffee & Tea Festival: General Notes

Today: General Notes. Upcoming: More specifics on booths and presentations, plus a few photos.

The 2008 Coffee & Tea Festival was a success. There was a solid turnout and an interesting and varied representation of tea in the booths. The lectures were informative and entertaining and the industry turnout (outside of the booths) was decent. The partons I saw and spoke with seemed pleased with the event, and my friends who attended loved some of the products they sampled (and bought). My only complaints were the noise interference during the lectures and demos and the fact that a large number of the booths had little to do with tea, coffee, and their usual accompaniments (bottled water, beer, olive oil, etc.). Lynda Calimano assures me that the sound issues will be resolved next year and I have the feeling that the booths will get filled with more and more coffee and tea people as the festival grows. Although the Coffee and Tea Festival is nowhere near as large as the World Tea Expo, it is well worth checking out if you are in NYC or the surrounding areas (or if you just dislike Vegas!). I'm looking forward to attending (and maybe even speaking) next year!

Coffee & Tea Festival, Day 2

Sadly, the 2008 Coffee & Tea Festival has ended. Over the next week, I'll be filling in the details of this year's Festival. That way, if you didn't make it there this year, you can still know what to expect next year. For now, here's a quick rundown on today.

There was a bigger crowd here than yesterday. And, of course, there were lots of people to meet and products to taste, smell, and see. Here are my personal highlights of the day:

Hearing Tafu's "Green Tea 101", complete with matcha white chocolate cupcakes and chilled sencha
Tasting BiscotTea's Earl Grey biscotti, which was made with Makaibari Estate's Tea
Listening to Chris Cason's (Tavalon) "The Future of Tea" to learn more about one of my current fascinations--tea trends
Buying "From the Ground Up" and talking with filmmaker Su Freidrich (I'll be reviewing the DVD in a few weeks, and interviewing her soon thereafter.)
Sampling SerindipiTea's teas (my friends adored the City Harvest Black Tea with vanilla and orchid) and talking with their manager (Sonam) about Tibetan clothing (I was wearing a Tibetan/Nepalese chupa/boku yesterday.)

More tomorrow! Check back soon!

Coffee and Tea Festival, Day 1, Post 2

Day one has ended, and it was wonderful. I'll be filling in more details over the next week, but in the meantime here are some more highlights from today:

Tea Blending (and the infamous "Better Than Sex" rooibos) by Nina Ordoubodi of Tay Tea
Tafu Tea's freshly master-roasted houjicha and house-made matcha cupcakes
Tea Classics' Korean gourd strainers and Korean Tea Ceremony (They showed great poise despite audio issues--very admirable!)
Georgia Bakeshop's incredible French macaroons and mini souffles
Talking with Yoshie Yano-Pennings of Ito En about the company history and the Umami Festival
Talking with Elin Headrick (whose writing you've probably seen in TeaMuse) about tea, Chicago, and NYC

Tomorrow I'll check out SerendipiTea, Tafu's presentations, Chris Cason's "The Future of Tea," and the short film "From the Ground Up." Exciting! If you see me there, come say hello!

NYC Coffee and Tea Festival, Day 1, Post 1

The Coffee and Tea Festival is off to a great start! There's
a big crowd and there are plenty of vendors and events to keep them entertained. A few highlights from my visit so far:

Ito En's new teas, Mint Green and Oi Ocha (the latter was available in Japan and in Asian specialty stores in the US, and is now available in mainstream US stores)
Meeting the lovely owners of Harshita Designs, a tea-themed textile line (my background is in textile design) and members of the family who owns Chamong, a fair trade estate in Darjeeling
Coffee & Tea Infused Cocktails presentation (with fantastic creations from Sanctuary T) and Zen Green Tea Liqueur (made by the same company, more astringent and less sweet than their Japanese-market version)Catching up with Chris Cason of Tavalon (and formerly of Adagio) on Tavalon, tea liqueurs, and (random) hot peppers
Learning a few new things about afternoon tea from Ellen Easton
Chatting with Christine Rillo of Adagio


More soon!

Umami

Umami, the Japanese "fifth taste" (after salty, sweet, sour, and bitter), is a term often used in tea tasting. It is roughly translated as "astringency," and it creates a feeling of the tongue's surface shrinking when you experience it.

This week, there is an Umami Festival in NYC to celebrate food and art. Tonight there will be a salt tasting. Tomorrow's focus is on food and art. Next week, there will be several chef's panel discussions and a wine tasting. Perhaps next year, it will include tea.

Don't forget that the NYC Coffee and Tea Festival is this weekend! Congrats to those who won tickets through my blog! For everyone else, don't forget that you can get half-price tickets with the promo code "VEETEA." Perhaps I'll see you there!

Record-Setting Tea Party

Clearly, I am on a "post all the old drafts" kick with my blog as of late. Soon, I'll be back to more of the regular blogging style. In the meantime, here's an odd story I've been meaning to post for a while: The world's largest tea party! Excerpt:

As more than 30,000 people on Sunday (February 24, 2008) raised their designer cups and took a sip of tea, Indore city of Madhya Pradesh set a new record for hosting the largest tea party.

Citizens responded with enthusiasm to the novel event and started arriving at a stadium, the venue for the function, well ahead of the scheduled time of 3.30 p.m. and within an hour all seats were taken.


Cool! It broke the previous record, which was 14,718 people in Nishiao, Japan in 2006. Read more on the world's largest tea party on Sify News.