New Business Boot Camp

New Business Boot Camp

This one-of-a-kind, two-day, intensive and hands-on program covers critical topics facing the tea entrepreneur. The faculty is made up of top notch educators and experienced experts successfully working in the tea industry today. Packed with education and networking opportunities, NBBC provides the training and knowledge you need to run a successful tea business- right from the start.

• 16 hours of intensive, small group education by leading industry experts
• Breakfast and lunch both days
• Exclusive NBBC Networking Reception
• Graduation ceremony
• Three-day Expo Exhibit Hall pass
• Admission to the World Tea Expo Opening Night Networking Reception
• Access to Vendor Presentations and Special Events (excluding paid conference sessions that are being held in Special Events Pavilion)
• 20% Discount on Expo Educational Conference Sessions when registering for at least 4 (four)
• Access to Natural MarketPlace exhibits, June 11-12, 2010 also at the Las Vegas Convention Center

Program Overview:

Tea 101, Jane Pettigrew, International Tea Consultant and Writer
Create Your Strategic Business Plan, Karen Durkin, MBA, Principal, Houldsworth Russo & Co., P.C.
Basic Legal for Tea Business Owners, Kristen Schneider, Esq., President, Keria Teas, LLC
Hiring and Training Your Staff, Elisabeth Knottingham, Owner, The Teacup
Purchasing and Inventory Management, Charles Cain, Business Development, Adagio Teas
Capturing and Marketing Customers, Beth Johnston, President, Teas Etc., Inc.
Core Technologies to Optimize Business Performance, Ronald Eng, Owner, Kopius Teas
Ask the Experts, All Faculty

Click Here for Full Session Descriptions

*Itinerary

*Due to the class size limits, each attendee will be assigned to a group and the sessions will rotate. Following registration, each attendee will be supplied his/her itinerary.

Proudly Sponsored by: Rishi Tea

Kulov's Annual Tea Festival

http://www.kulovteafest.com/

The Festival is a fun and educational event about the multifaceted world of tea.  Our goal is to provide experiences covering all aspects of tea, from the cultural to the historical and the sensory to the scientific.

Bringing together authors, industry experts, buyers, retailers, artists, and educators, we hope you learn something new and expand your enjoyment of this most fascinating of beverages!

• You will have the opportunity to sample some of the finest teas from all over the world.
• Attend presentations led by leading tea authors and industry experts.
• Meet premier tea and tea ware suppliers.

Added new this year – Specialty Tea Institute Tea Certification Program –

We are excited to announce that the Specialty Tea Institute will present the introductory levels of its Tea Certification Program in the two days immediately prior to the Festival. For More information – Click Here

Northwest Tea Festival

About the History of The Northwest Tea Festival

The Northwest Tea Festival was conceived in spring of 2007 and is brought to you by the Puget Sound Tea Education Association (PSTea).  Our first festival was in the fall of 2008. This year marks our third festival. Each year the event becomes more exciting and this year is no exception.

Our founding PSTea members are:
Deborah Barnes, Village Yarn & Tea
Michael Coffey, Tea Geek
Marcus Gramps, Teahouse Kuan Yin
James Norwood Pratt, author of New Tea Lover’s Treasury
Julee Rosanoff, Perennial Tea Room
Ken Rudee, Barnes & Watson Fine Teas

Core Conference Overview

* ETS – Executive & Technical Content

STI CERTIFICATION PROGRAM

Level I: Foundation Series
Foundations of Tea: Level One

As the first course in STI’s expanding education and certification program, Foundations of Tea: Level One will provide attendees with a strong understanding of the 5 basic tea types and the two traditional styles of orthodox tea production used to create them. Topics also include the essential components of teas, where and how teas are grown, the stages of processing and what differentiates the different types and classifications of tea. Attendees will have the opportunity to taste representative samples of each of the 5 tea types, discuss tea steeping methods and examine the basic characteristics of different teas.

Level II: Foundation Series
Foundations of Tea: Level Two

Building on the essential groundwork presented in Level One, Foundations of Tea: Level Two will examine CTC tea production and manufacture, as well as blending, flavoring and scenting, and introduction to sensory evaluation of teas. Also included is an introduction to the principles of grading and naming teas by country of origin. This seminar will allow attendees to examine and taste 5-6 pairs of teas as they are guided through the basics of a comparison cupping of the 5 tea types.

Level III: Professional Series

To complete Level Three in its entirety, you must complete all five classes listed below. You do not need to take them in any specific order, but all must be completed and passed to receive Certification for Level Three.

Please note: Upon completion of each class you will receive certification in that focused class (ex. Black Teas) to accredit your knowledge in that specified area of tea.

• Black Teas
• Oolong Teas
• Sensory Evaluation
• Green Teas
• White & Pu’erh Teas

ITSS A Bookstore Website

International Tea Sippers Society is sponsoring a booth at the 2010 World Tea Expo.

Thousands of tea professionals will crowd the Las Vegas Convention Center for their annual trade show, educational hub and networking extravaganza.

Hohhot train station

We arrived in Hohhot, the capitol city of Inner Mongolia, early in the morning and transferred from the train to a tour bus. The plan was to freshen up in the hotel before breakfast and then venturing out onto the Steppes.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Inner Mongolia. But like much of my tour experience, I was amazed at how new and modern the major cities are. Friends who had gone before me just a few years ago described a very different experience. Of course, this was true in Beijing because of the Olympics. But it was also the case in more remote areas.

Hohhot Hotel

Hohhot isn’t one of the international hot spots for tourism so there are no 5-Star hotels. Restaurants are also a bit limited. But I would say that it is comfortably modern. And, as in most of our tour through China, we were treated with great kindness.

The buffet breakfast at this and most hotels was surprisingly generous and stocked with many local specialties. There were trays of fresh fruit and large pitchers of juice. Rice for breakfast is a given along with fresh vegetables and soup. There were also various kinds of steamed buns and unusual sweets. I wish now that I had taken notes of the names of some of the more unusual foods. But they also served the traditional milk tea. And while it wasn’t served with ceremony at the breakfast buffet, it was delicious.

Mongolian Milk Tea is called Suutei tsai, made from brick tea that has been boiled with salt, milk and water. Frequently some grains will also be cooked into the mixture.

More on Suutiei Tsai and the Naadam Cultural Festival!

But I leave you with the photo of our hotel room tea service. Aaaah . . . .

Tea in Hohhot

Tea Ladies On The Night Train to Mongolia

One unexpected delight to the China Tea Tour was the overnight train from Beijing to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia.  It was this part of the trip that I first started to appreciate the expertise and commitment of our national guides. I started to realize how many things can go wrong in a schedule as full and tight as ours which could have seriously disrupted the plan.

Managing a dozen people and luggage on and off buses, in an out of hotels and arranging meals is one thing. But having those same dozen travelers nearly miss a completely full train was a challenge that will never be adequately translated. We were all too busy trying to man-handle our own luggage through a complex and crowded terminal to fully appreciate the delicate negotiations Mr. Wu demonstrated on our behalf.

“What did you do?” we all asked once safely through the chaos and on board the train in our compartments. He just shrugged and smiled. One of many times he worked magic to make travel flow seamlessly from one adventure to the next.

We all fit into three compartments. Luggage filled the overhead rack and the isles between bunks as each of us claimed a “rack”. Then there are always the toilet stories. But I can leave most of the details about “squatties” on a moving train to your imagination. What my camera missed were the signs at squatting eye level. One was a caution not to let your cell phone fall down the hole. The other was a reminder not to jump off a moving train. (Not about tea but I still laugh out loud when I remember the moment.)

Buying Tea on Lui Li Chang Street, Beijing

Quick Photo Flashback:

Being the tea devotees we all were, the plan to have tea on the train had been calculated that afternoon as we cruised an amazing tea and antique area called Lui Li Chang Street (Beijing). Several of our group spent the afternoon in an amazing tea store and found an Oolong worthy of celebration. But two elements – in addition to the superlative tea – were critical to properly enjoy tea on board a Chinese train.

One was a travel gaiwan set. A very generous companion on our tour team found an excellent mini-set in a clever travel pouch. She shared her brewing expertise, her travel set and an unforgettable tea she found on Lui Li Street!

The second was the fact that there was hot water available on our train.  At the end of the car was a small cabinet in which there was a kettle with a constant supply of hot water. Tea Land!

There we had a Train Tea Party.  We were a giddy group, jostling our way through multiple infusions. I think we lost count. But, finally, we were rocked to sleep on board our train.

End Of Non-linear Moment

There’s just something about taking tea in unusual surroundings . . . probably one of my reasons for going on this trip. New tea experiences. New life experiences. I had ridden trains before. I had slept on trains before. But I had never watched the gradual dawn over the gentle hills of this kind of countryside. As the light came up, I could watch from my upper berth – the pastures, the farms, unusual rock formations. An entirely new part of the world. But it could have been my home state. It could have been the grasslands of Western Texas. Except for the tea.

Factory Display of Puerh Cakes

Have you heard of Puerh tea?  It can be spelled multiple ways but it’s all the same tea.  People tend to think that only green tea is healthy for you, but studies are showing that other teas, especially this one, are just as good for you.

Puerh and Cholesterol

The most eye opening of these studies was conducted in France several years ago. A blind study was conducted with 500 hyperlipidemia patients (individuals with advanced cholesterol conditions, usually controlled with medication). Half of the controlled group consumed 3-4 cups of Puerh daily, while the rest of the participants were given something else. After a 30-day period the results showed that drinking Puerh on a regular basis could significantly lower cholesterol and further research confirmed that Puerh was as effective as the most advanced cholesterol lowering medications available.  (source: http://www.innteas.com/teas/puerh.htm)

Is it a black tea?

So what exactly is Puerh? And how did it get its name? The name “Puerh” comes from the name of the town in Yunnan Province in China where the tea is processed and sold, not from where the tea is actually grown.  Because the transportation of goods in the mountainous area was very difficult, it took a long time to transport the tea out of Yunnan by horseback.  The tea was transported inside burlap bags.  It began as “Sheng cha” green or raw tea and after the long journey often times a year or more, it naturally evolved into “Shou cha” or dark finished tea.  The high moisture content in the raw green leaves naturally promoted fermentation inside the burlap bags.  The result is a dark tea with a full bodied, deep red liquor with many layers and complex flavor (Puerh information obtained from Roy Fong of the Imperial Tea Court’s OMG Tea Class).

Puerh can be found in both loose leaf and compressed forms. It is not a black tea but rather its own type.  When you think of tea on a spectrum with green being the least processed to the most processed, Puerh falls at the end of the spectrum.  To find out more about this fascinating tea, stay tuned for Babette’s upcoming blog posts on Puerh teas and her experiences picking and processing her own tea cake.

Cinnamon Apple Scones

• 12 c. self-rising flour
• 2 c. sugar
• 1 lb. unsalted butter
• 4 c. apples, chopped
• 2 T. cinnamon
• 4 c. buttermilk

Topping:

• 1 c. butter, softened
• 2 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 c. flour
• 1 c. oatmeal
• 2 t. cinnamon
• 1 c. pecans, chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour and sugar.  cut in butter until mixture is coarse and crumbly.
3. Add chopped apples and cinnamon.
4. Fold in about 3/4 of the buttermilk into the flour mixture to make a soft dough.
5. If dough is too dry, gradually add more buttermilk.
6. Turn out on a floured board.
7. Form into a circle which is about 8″ in diameter.  Press down lightly to about 1 inch thick.
8. Cut dough into 8 pie-shaped wedges.
9. Place scones on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
10. Mix together topping ingredients, place 1-2 T. of topping on each scone.
11. Press down topping lightly.
12. Bake until lightly browned about 10 minutes in a convection oven (all ovens are different so baking time can vary widely.)

Makes about 40 scones.