Talking therapy at the Sydney Tea Festival

Old friends and new faces share tea at the biggest tea event on the Australian calendar: the Sydney Tea Festival (sorry Melbourne, it's true).

DōMatcha®–meaning the way or journey of matcha. 

While David shared his slide decks, co-director James Lyons and I, with help from Queensland ambassador Kym Cooper, were manning the AUSTCS stand amid the saccharine aromas of LuxBite and Nutie Donuts and the fascinating tea ceremony unfolding in the Tea Cube.

We were privileged to share many tea culture conversations with friends and strangers. The number one question I asked those new faces was: 'Do you think Australia has a tea culture?' Most people said 'yes' (or 'yes... ish') but, when pressed to elaborate, found they couldn't define it. Some opted to talk about billy tea and colonial times—and it's true that in the 19th century Australians were the biggest consumers of tea in the world per capita—but realised fairly quickly that compared to our coffee culture, our modern tea culture is barely known outside the tea community in Australia, let alone overseas.

And once the gates opened, out came the grievances about how tea drinkers are treated as second-class customers in cafes ("Why is it so expensive for a teabag in a paper cup? And the water's never hot enough!" vented one festival-goer, with many others expressing a similar sentiment). It's true it's rare to find a cafe in Australia without a trained barista behind the machine; it's as rare as finding a cafe with someone who knows how to properly prepare hot water and tealeaves.

That got people thinking about how an event like AUSTCS could fill the gap between what the industry is serving us, both in the hospitality domain and in tea education, and what it could deliver in the future, if only we could air these issues. The popularity of the Sydney Tea Festival and its Melbourne counterpart is evidence that there's at least the beginnings of a tea movement in Australia, and the inaugural AUSTCS has been designed precisely to give the tea community a forum to accelerate that.

Probably the highlight of my conversations with strangers was meeting a pair of Scots who own a farm most famous for being the birthplace of botanist-turned-tea-spy Robert Fortune (do Google him if you're unfamiliar with his work), but I also enjoyed putting faces to Instagram and Twitter handles and digging deep into tea nerd territory.

What veteran festival stallholders failed to tell me, however, was how little tea you actually drink when you're on a stand talking all day. So after several hours on our feet, continually gabbing, it was nice to have a sit-down and a cuppa, celebrating the news that there will be not one, not two, but three specialty teahouses opening in the Sydney CBD and metropolitan area later this year, proving that some still have an appetite for starting businesses in this challenging area. Cheers to that!

I'm going to share with you one last thing: our earlybird tickets have been exhausted but secretly, just between you, me and the internet, there's a code that'll get you the same discount. Go to austcs.org/buy-tickets and enter sydteafest17 to get $45 off. (Hint: Do it before David decides we're being too lenient (end of sept.))

Tea and HamburgersWhat’s Happening at AUSTCS 2017? 

The German port city of Hamburg delivers a surprising tea treasure.

In my mind, Germany is neither a 'tea' nor 'coffee' country: if we're talking beverage-related cultural stereotypes, Germany is synonymous with the quaffing of large quantities of beer. On the few occasions I have been to Germany, I've certainly enjoyed a stein or two of the frothy amber, which is best accompanied by a pretzel as big as one's head.

This is not to say tea is uncommon in Germany—far from it. But you'd be hard-pressed to find a cafe or venue that serves unblended tea and, in some cases, you may not even see Camellia sinensis on the menu, such is Germany's preference for fruits, flowers and herbs with or without our favourite leaf.

Of the dozens of cafe menus I've examined in three cities (Berlin, Munich, Hamburg), most had one unadorned black tea of Indian or Sri Lankan origin, usually Darjeeling or Assam, and a range of black tea blends featuring fruits (berries were a favourite) and/or flowers (hibiscus featured heavily). I was lucky to find green tea on occasion, though it also commonly came blended. And often classed as tee were the herbal infusions and tisanes, which regularly outnumbered the camellia leaf blends.

I must admit at this point that my German is pretty much confined to 'ich bin zwölf jahre alt' ('I am 12 years old') and 'wo ist die toilette?' ('where is the toilet?') and the numbers one to nine as that's all I remember of the term of German I did in Year 7, so what I could gather of the museum needs to be understood through that tiny lens.

Basically though, Hamburg built its fortune as a trading port, a very important one for central western Europe over centuries, so it's no surprise that tea and spices came through the city in the early days of China-Europe trade relations. Thus, Hamburgers managed to get their hands on the stuff before a lot of other places. Many Hamburgers were also rich merchants who could afford imported luxuries like tea, and Meßmer was one of the brands that brought it in.

Whether the blending happened early in the piece I cannot say, but I attribute much of the general population's tea-drinking preferences to the German inclination towards health and the tradition of steeping plants for healing.

At MOMENTUM I enjoyed my giant pot of bai xue long (snow dragon) tea with a couple of cranberry scones topped with lemon curd. After all, it wouldn't be a tea experience in Germany without the berries, would it?

By Adeline Teoh

FAQs for AUSTCS 2017Staying For The Weekend?

A couple of questions we were asked at the Sydney Tea Festival about the seminar, answered here. 

Q: As a non-industry delegate, what can I expect at the Australian Tea Cultural Seminar? 

A: In the past, events of this nature have been targeted at the tea industry and oftentimes it's about how to identify trends and grow a business. We felt there was something amiss. Commerce and access to tea of course play a role in tea culture, but tea culture is also about tea appreciation and education. We decided the seminar would be a way for people in the tea community to contribute to the conversation and tea's future. The first day of the seminar is about listening to a few presenters give their insights and perspectives of tea, culture and tea culture and the second day is a forum where people from the tea community can talk about where they see the culture now and where they want it to be. We want organisations in the tea industry to listen to individuals in the tea community as much as they listen to other organisations so it is very important to have non-industry delegates at the seminar. That's why one of our pillars is 'Share your voice'. 

Q: Can I volunteer? 

A: Short answer: yes. At the moment we are focusing on finalising the program and ticket sales and then we will have a better idea of how many volunteers we need and how many we can take on (as we are restricted by room capacity). If you're interested in volunteering, drop me an email: adeline@austcs.org