World Tea Festival in Shizuoka, 2010

Posted on Saturday, October 30, 2010 | 0 comments

    We decided to brave the typhoon passing through today and venture out to the World Tea Festival being held this weekend here in Shizuoka. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that it's held here every year, but this is the first time I've actually gone.
  Basically, it's a big exhibition-style venture, with tons of booths from various tea companies throughout Japan and around the world. (Who knew they made Ceylon Banana tea??) I also had no idea that it would be quite so crowded there! Whether that was due to the typhoon and people having nothing else to do, or if it's that way every year, I'm not sure. My guess is that it's usually pretty busy though, since the vendors give out free tea samples, sweets, etc, and there's nothing that draws a crowd around here more than a free sample does! We made out pretty well in the loot department: 2 clear file holders, a bunch of tea-infused candies, 3 or 4 samples of green tea, and 2 tea strainers. Not bad for a rainy afternoon!
     Besides the exhibition booths, there was a main stage with tea-related skits being performed, and on another floor, a bunch of tea ceremonies using various teas from around the world (China, Sri Lanka, Thailand, to name a few), but we didn't attend one of those since they required advance payment. I did like seeing the awards for new tea-related products, however: green tea cream cheese, a pen-type device that you could use to make powdered green tea portable, tea sold in a wine bottle (??), and green tea cream soup, to name a few. Too bad they didn't have samples for any of those!

     

                                            Sign outside the Granship hall   

                                           One of many displays

                                  Fresh Japanese sweets rolled in powdered tea

                          Tea being sold in wine bottles...for that price, I think I'd opt for the wine!

                        Green tea cream soup sign (sadly, there was none of the actual product in sight)

                                Green tea cream cheese

                             Pen-type devices for holding single-servings of powdered green tea

                                                A tea ceremony in action

                                 Some of the exhibitions

                                The vendors' floor

                                    Green tea sweets for sale

                                         Biggest bottle of 'Oy-ocha' (Hey! Tea!) ever


The loot: tea samples, tea-infused candy, a tea strainer, etc 

0 comments: