Five years of the Sydney Tea Festival
On Sunday 19 August, the Sydney Tea Festival celebrated its fifth annual event. Here's Adeline Teoh with the tea on the trends to watch.
It looked like 2018 might be the Year of the Butterfly-Pea, that ubiquitous blue tisane that turns purple with a squeeze of lemon juice, which has been all the rage over Instagram these past few months. In fact, only one stall (My Blue Tea) used it as their main sell, with each vendor doing their best to differentiate their offering.
The biggest trend appeared to be Australian bush ingredients, from repeat vendors Lore once again selling guradji leaves and T Totaler already blending with native botanicals, to newcomers Gulbarn, Sacred Grove and Sunborn offering indigenous tisanes.
Second to that was mixology, primarily blending tea with other ingredients, but also the increase of alcohol brands combining booze and tea. At the low end, kombucha, working up to tea wine, Longleaf tea vodka and Archie Rose gin for tea cocktails.
Camellia lovers had a thirst for the light side, with white tea proving unexpectedly popular, though the floor was dominated by specialty blends.
Most heartening to see was that the masterclasses sold out, indicating that tea lovers are indeed looking for a way to level up on their tea skills and knowledge.
As for us? The Australian Tea Cultural Seminar (AUSTCS) stand was situated in front of the lecture theatre, where founding director David Lyons presented on Tea Essentials, and the tea blending station, with a very popular honey vendor as next-door neighbour (hello Happy B!). We fielded a lot of interest from self-selecting enthusiasts and entrepreneurs and even attracted the eye of Ausfeng Events, which is planning a showcase of Chinese tea vendors later this year. Watch this space for how we might get involved in bridging the cultural gap with the home of tea.
We now pass the tea baton from Sydney to Melbourne where we are looking forward to welcoming you to AUSTCS 2018 at The Savoy Hotel on 8-9 September.
(Below: The tea masterclasses, such as this one on Japanese Green Tea
by AUSTCS member Harumi Oshitani, were sold out.)