Despite the fact that I’ve been the Managing Editor for T Ching for almost two years, I never had the opportunity to attend one of the many amazing tea festivals that take place every year. Instead, I have had to settle for reading about them in posts by some of our incredibly talented writers. This finally changed in July when I went to the Portland Tea Festival!

Our very first stop was to find the T Ching and International Tea Sippers Society booth, where I finally got to meet my “boss”, Babette Donaldson, for the first time! She gifted me a cute little “Sip For Peace” tea cup, then indicated the handout and banner that I had created for the 2018 T Ching Writers Contest. (There’s always something special about seeing the tangible final product.) She pointed out that our contributing author Kei Nishida was in her “neighbor” booth and then urged me to go and explore the festival.

I wandered over to patiently stand in the short line at the Japanese Green Tea booth then introduced myself to Kei. Since our writers are located all over the world, all communication is done via email. As a result, not only had I never met him before – it was also my first time meeting any of our authors face-to-face! Then, after a final wave to Babette, I set out to experience the festival.

I saw a huge variety of products, chatted with numerous vendors, asked a lot of questions, and of course – sampled some amazing tea! The person I attended with isn’t much of a tea drinker, so our enjoyment was very different. I got to introduce them to many new things; including cold-brewed green tea — which they really liked, despite the fact that they have never cared for green tea — and gongfu tea preparation. They, in turn, watched in amused bemusement (or bemused amusement?) as I asked the vendors technical questions. We had a snack of steam buns and almond cookies, and bought some things from the used china booth (all items were donated and the proceeds go to the tea fest).

As the event wound down, we returned to our starting point to make our goodbyes to Babette. When we arrived at her booth, we saw how exhausted she was and offered our assistance in breaking down and packing up her booth. In short order, we got everything boxed and loaded in her car. We said our goodbyes, that we were glad to finally meet, and agreed to meet again at the end of September for the NW Tea Festival in Seattle!

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