Sunday, February 8, 2015...a fun yet informative community event for people who like tea! Come one, come all! On Sunday, February 8, 2015, the 1st Annual Texas Tea Festival will kick off at historic Saengerrunde Hall in Austin, Texas.
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The festival will include tea tastings (porcelain tasting cup included with admission), tea vendors, tea time treats, tea talks, a live music (it’s Austin, after all), and tons more fun! This is a fun event for the tea connoisseur and novice alike! There will be a variety of teas to sample, including blacks, greens, whites, oolongs, flavored teas, herbal teas, and iced teas. What better way to spend a cold (or warm, as the case may be) winter’s day in Texas!
Operating as usual
Hi All, this is Ellen Simonetti, founder and CTeaO of the Texas Tea Festival. I've received soooo many inquiries about the next festival, which is wonderful, but unfortunately I've moved on to other things. However, the name "Texas Tea Festival" (trademarked) is for sale, along with the domain name, logo, and social media pages. Please email me at [email protected] if you're interested.
More pics courtesy of Austin Raindrop Turkish House! :)
Raindrop Turkish House recently participated in the 1st Annual Texas Tea Festival, which took place on February 8th at the Saengerrunde Hall of downtown Austin. During the festival over 700 visitors enjoyed different types of tea and food served by various sponsors. Raindrop booth was one of the most popular spots in the hall as it served famous Turkish flavors, including Turkish tea, Turkish coffee, Turkish delight, baklava and brownie cookies. These flavors were accompanied by the traditional tea pot, samovar, tea and coffee sets that decorated the booth, which attracted a lot of interest from our visitors including the speakers and other vendors at the event. It was so much fun to be a part of this great event. We cannot wait for the next year’s festival!
Your Chief Tea Officer is so grateful to our friends at Tealet for making this WONDERFUL video of the 1st Annual Texas Tea Festival! :) :*
Two weeks ago history went down in Austin, Texas at the first annual Texas Tea Festival. A shout out to all the organizers, participants, vendors, speakers, and attendees.
Take a look at the rest of our videos: https://vimeo.com/tealet/videos
Texas Tea Festival's cover photo
A vendor's view of the tea festival, courtesy of Chai Diaries....
"Perhaps that is the true gift of a teatime celebration: It fills our cups with joy and warmth and friendship "-Emilie Barnes
The 1st Annual Texas Tea Festival had the support of wonderful sponsors, Tea Talk guest speakers, tea vendors, harpist Dian Repp, and musician Alyssia Dieringer, but it was both fun and humbling for all of them to see the enthusiastic tea drinkers who attended! What's a tea festival without hundreds and hundreds of people who like tea? Thank you for inviting friends, sharing your comments and photos (Don Mason did this collage), and embracing your very own tea festival!
We hear the US League of Tea Growers 1st Annual meeting is a great success! This can only mean more good things are on the way for the tea industry, and perhaps there was a similar excitement when California entered into the wine industry so many years ago. Let's hear it for the tea farmers!
When Rhonda Wagner-Dockery and her daughter, Rachel Simmons, asked if we would mind if they contributed a door prize for the tea festival, we told them, "We gladly accept!" They were some of the first people to purchase tickets, and they sent fun emails telling us about their plans to bring along more friends to Austin for the festival weekend.
A random name was chosen from our guest list, and Ms. Ethel was delighted to go home with the gift basket and teapot. Thanks, again, Rhonda and Rachel!
We are thankful for the artistic efforts of Eula Sharp! She offered to help us spruce up the tea festival with some decorations which were quintessentially Texan. Her creativity was also shown in the teapot pin cushions she made for her husband's Tea Talk about the East Frisian Tea Ceremony. We heard people admiring her work at the front entrance, the decorated saddle on stage, and the fun lamp at the Tea Bar. She spent many hours finding the materials, especially the small Texas flags, and even more hours sewing and creating everything. For more information about her decorations, please email: [email protected]
More pics of the line to get into the tea festival (it really did go around the block!!!) and the festival itself, plus the Free Tea party going on outside!
Tea tastin' Texas style, y'all!
Many thanks to Whitney Printing for their help with our tea festival banners, schedules, handouts and signage! Kevin and his team worked quickly, color corrected, and dealt with the many different sponsor logos with ease. They were excited to hear about our event, gave us advice about materials and a great deal to fit within our budget. They are so nice, they even called us last week to ask how everything went! For more information, please visit http://whitneyprintingcompany.com/ or their page.
Here's a great write up of our festival! :)
Tea Festival in Texas
Our volunteers were wonderful! They helped with everything from filling the welcome bags to working the registration table to clicking the crowd counter to hanging up fliers around their towns. Thank you to: "The Tuesday Tea Group", Barbara, Desmond, Gina, Clarissa Almaraz, Inge Bothma, Denise Flores, Amanda Joyce, Carie Joyce, Don Mason, Risa Morales, Vanessa Morgan-Valdovinos, Marzie Pecen, Janet Pliego, Morgan Pliego, and Amanda Vermillion. Some of you were at the tea festival from sun up to sun down, and it could not have happened without you!
Another thank you is in order to Tony & Katie Gebely. His World of Tea blog has provided so much information, and he and his wife graciously invited us over for tea with their friends when we were at San Francisco's tea festival. Since he was working hard to finish his book, a trip to Texas was not possible this year. He helped us get our Tea Talk roster started when he introduced us to Elyse Petersen of Tealet...she agreed to be a guest speaker for us...and she introduced us to her tea farmer friends, Josephie Dean Jackson & Jason McDonald. What a lovely tea community we have!
Please visit: http://www.worldoftea.org/ for more information about the upcoming tea book by Tony Gebely.
There are so many people who helped with the success of the Texas Tea Festival, and we are truly appreciative for them! For starters, Eric Bleau of the San Francisco International Tea Festival was a great mentor. He shared everything he knew about the ins and outs of tea festivals, helped us polish our logo, and cheered us on every step of the way. We have a lot more to learn from him, but here's a Texas-sized THANK YOU to Eric... we could not have done this without you!
What an honor to have had this lovely friend celebrate her 88th birthday with our festival. Thanks to her daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter for attending with her!
Met these sweet ladies in line & they were here Celebrating her 88th Birthday with 4 generations of TX Tea drinkers.
Oh, the knowledge of tea in these three! Pictured left to right: Kyle Stewart (The Cultured Cup), Josephie Dean Jackson (East Texas Tea Company), and Devan Shah (International Tea Importers, Chado Tea Room, & Los Angeles International Tea Festival). It was our privilege to have them at our tea festival.
Thanks to everyone who helped organize the First Texas Tea Festival in Austin yesterday. The day demonstrated that Texas is at the cutting edge of tea. Did you know that tea is being grown successfully by the East Texas Tea Company? Josephie Dean Jackson, a dear friend and the company's founder, gave a fascinating presentation yesterday about growing and processing artisan Texas Tea, and I'm not talking about Texas crude! Pictured here with Josephie and Devan Shah of International Tea Importers (ITI). So great to catch up with James Norwood Pratt (JNP), Lee Garcia, Editor of Tea In Texas and many others.
More festival pics! :)
Teal
We had a blast! Thank you so much for putting this together!
It was a smashing success! Thanks to all who came out! :D
Austin is known for its festivals, and Sunday welcomes a new one to town, the Texas Tea Festival.
If you are worried about parallel parking or not finding an available parking space on the street, there are 2 parking garages ($7 fee) on San Jacinto Boulevard directly across from Saengerrunde Hall (pictures below of Garage R & Garage Q).
Texas Tea Festival is today, friends, from 11:00 am to 5:00pm. Austin Saengerrunde Hall is located at 1607 San Jacinto Boulevard, on the left side of this one-way street between 17th Street & 16th Street. Parking meters in Austin are free on Sundays, so grab a spot on any of the nearby streets!
Tune in to The KVUE Insider this morning, Austin, to see Jade Mingus interview Mr. James Norwood Pratt. He will talk about teas and our Texas Tea Festival! The Sunday show airs from 7:00 am to 9:00 am. Visit: www.kvue.com for more information.
The Marvelous Vintage Tea Party Co. LLC will have a small lounge area near the Tea Bar at the festival... it will be a great spot to take some photos! Owner Sophie Parrott has planned parties for celebrities like Kelly Clarkson and enjoys creating beautiful tea parties for all of her clients. For more information about them, please find them on Facebook, Twitter or online at their newly redesigned website: www.marveloustea.com
Our final festival sponsor and vendor is the Waterfall Tea Company! They carry a variety of premium loose leaf teas, pyramid tea bags, and instant premix for chai and iced teas. Their tag line is, "Your personal tea sommelier," because they can cater to any taste and suggest an ideal option. Flavored teas? They have you covered! A gift box of tea bags for a book club? They have that! Loose leaf organic tea for a special brunch? They have that, too!
To view their full collection of teas, visit: www.waterfallteas.com/ or find them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thank you for supporting the brands and businesses that make the Texas Tea Festival possible!
Our friends at SESA PURE are helping us to brew tea for the 700 guests at our festival Tea Bar on Sunday! They are bringing a variety of their own premium, hand blended, organic teas. Owner Aswini Sivaswamy enjoys providing people a simple and pure tea. We have tried many of their wonderful teas and all of their chai flavors, and you will get to try some of them, too!
For more information, take a look at their website: http://sesapure.com/ or find them on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. They are also at the Mueller Farmers' Market in Austin on Sundays, or you can call them to schedule a private tea tasting at their tea room on Burnet Road.
Thank you for supporting the brands and businesses that make the Texas Tea Festival possible!
What a treat to have West China Tea Company as a festival vendor! Founder So-Han Fan will have Chinese teas for everyone to sample, and he is happy to share his knowledge of gong fu cha (a skillful Chinese method of brewing tea).
He started the company over two years ago after being inspired by the tea farmers he met while living in China during an environmental research study. Visit him at The Tea Spot (at The Spider House Cafe) during your next trip to Austin. For more information, visit http://westchinateacompany.com/ or find them on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.
Thank you for supporting the brands and businesses that make the Texas Tea Festival possible!
Frequently Asked Questions about Texas Tea Festival
Q: What is the dress code?
A: Wear what is comfortable, whether it is your favorite jeans or your Sunday best, fancy hat, hipster hat, no hat... come on over!
Q: Any helpful hints?
A: It is usually less crowded in the first hour and last hour. Bring small bills for purchasing treats or tea to take home. Be patient, be kind and remember to thank the sponsors, vendors & guest speakers who are volunteering to be at our tea festival.
Q: Can we leave for lunch and return to the festival?
A: Yes! Everyone will get a wristband at check-in, so that is your proof of entrance.
Q: Will there be seating for everyone?
A: No, but there will a few chairs in the hall. The 2 Tea Talk rooms have chairs for each person in attendance (50 seats & 100 seats).
Q: Do I have to print out my Eventbrite ticket?
A: No, we will have a list of names at the check-in table.
Q: Can my friend buy a ticket at the door on Sunday?
A: We only have 85 tickets left (as of this evening)! There is a chance we might sell out by Sunday.
Q: Can I smoke inside?
A: No, the City of Austin does not allow smoking indoors.
Q: Is it wheelchair accessible?
A: Yes, there is a ramp at the entrance and a small elevator for those guests in wheelchairs who want to attend a 2nd floor Tea Talk.
Q: Can we take decor home with us at the end of the festival?
A: No, we are guests of the historic Saengerrunde Hall, and we need everyone's help to leave it exactly as we found it.
Please join us in welcoming a tea festival sponsor & vendor, Chai Diaries Premium Tea! Founder Ami Bhansali grew up experiencing the joy and beauty of her family's Indian tea garden and understood the simple pleasure of a good cup of tea. Wanting to share that delight with others, her company is able to offer a wide range of directly sourced teas online. The product line includes loose teas, pyramid tea bags, and instant chai mix.
For information about the company and its teas, find them online at: www.mychaidiaries.com or on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google Plus.
Thank you for supporting the brands and businesses that make the Texas Tea Festival possible!
One of our volunteers, Clarissa Almaraz, not only helped us post fliers around Dallas for the tea festival, but she also donated individually wrapped Steeped Tea for the VIP welcome bag! Those Advance Tickets are all sold out now, but Standard Tickets are available until Friday night. For more information about her tea: www.mysteepedteaparty.com/teasweetheart
Hold onto your hats, folks... there is a tea farm in Texas! We are excited to welcome "Tea Talk" guest speaker Josephie Dean Jackson, owner of the East Texas Tea Company. Her topic will be "TeaScapes," and it covers a little bit of everything - her tea farm, basics about tea, and the health benefits of drinking it.
Josephie grew up in Australia, and she planted each of the 500 tea plants herself. She says, "Camellia Sinensis have proven that they, much like Texans and Australians..., have a strong desire to live and thrive, even if they work hard to do so." She is part of the US League of Tea Growers, and we are so grateful she is able to spend a day with us in the midst of preparing for the tea growers' farm tour in late February. For more information about the Texas tea farm, log onto: http://eastexastea.com/
Allegro Tea is a festival sponsor, and they have generously sent samples of their organic herbal teas for the VIP welcome bags! (All sold out of these now, but Standard Tickets are for sale this week)
The Colorado company started as a coffee importer and roaster in 1985 in Boulder, Colorado. They have expanded their product line to include teas and spices, too. Whole Foods acquired the company in 1997, and "the result is a partnership of shared priorities and ideals that continue to nurture Allegro’s growth." Find out more about them online: www.allegrocoffee.com/ or on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.
Thank you for supporting the brands and businesses that make the Texas Tea Festival possible!
We are so happy to welcome a new festival vendor, the women of the Austin Raindrop Turkish House! It is a wonderful addition because it reminds us how people EVERYWHERE drink tea. They will bring a strong black tea prepared in their Turkish teapots. These tea samples will be free, but they are also going to have delicious baklava for purchase.
For more information about them, please visit their website: http://www.raindropturkishhouse.org/ Thank you for supporting the brands and businesses that make the Texas Tea Festival possible!
Monday Tea Memories
"I went to Finland on my own one summer and spent the majority of the time with my grandmother. She would make Lipton black tea in the afternoon, with some yummy cookies or cake, and we would chat about anything and everything. They were the best talks! To this day, if I even smell Lipton black tea, it brings me back to that special time with my grandmother, and I feel her warmth and love."
Thanks for sharing that with us, friend! Grandmothers certainly have helped many of us to become tea drinkers, and we have really enjoyed reading and hearing about so many of your tea memories during our festival preparation!
One of the 11:30 "Tea Talk" sessions will feature the East Frisian Tea Ceremony, performed by guest speaker, Jack Sharp. The 30 attendees will get to drink the tea, too!
His son has lived in Germany for the past 20 years, so Jack has been able to travel there frequently to experience the beauty and hospitality of Northwest Germany. The region's people drink an average of 5.5 pounds of tea per person each year!
Aside from being a tea enthusiast and world traveler, Jack is also a retired high school teacher, principal, and dairy farmer. We thank him for sharing his knowledge about this with us!
1607 San Jacinto Blvd
Austin, TX
78701
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