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/

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.

Tea at the White House?

The tea industry enjoyed an huge endorsement during this past year’s election. Whether you vote Red or Blue, if you’re a tea lover you can’t help but feel proud to know that the current White House residents are stocking up on tea. Even the LA Times noticed the Obama staff keeping him stocked with favorite RTD  (Ready to Drink) blends. And we’ve had confirmation that those same companies keep the First Family well supplied with TEA. His current favorite, Black Forest Berry & Green Dragon, ready-to-drink by Honest Tea.

C&C Front

Crown and Crumpet celebrate their 1st year anniversary!

We had the pleasure of meeting Christopher and Amy Dean in June of 2008 at the World Tea Expo, only a few months before they opened their lavish new tearoom in Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco. The ‘lavishness’ refers not only to the décor, but also the view and the rent. Amy fondly remembers, “Christopher was so excited showing me his pictures of the newly designed teapots with their logo on his mobile phone.  You could tell this tea room was his baby.  His excitement was infectious. It reminded of me when I opened my own tearoom.”

We all were impressed that they were choosing such a challenging market with the high-profile tourism. It’s an expensive piece of real estate with high demands by the landlord but they have the opportunity to make teatime much more visible. People will come to their door that may never have considered a cuppa in the afternoon. Christopher, Amy and their will trained staff will often be the first to introduce a tea menu and serve a pot of loose leaves. On the other hand, those of us with closets full tins love the opportunity to sit on the terrace and savor a fine Darjeeling while feasting on the visual flavor of fog dripping over the Golden Gate Bridge.

But the blessing of such an amazing view and brisk tourist trade is challenged by some of the leasehold demands. They are required to be open 9 AM-9 PM, seven days a week.  In addition to their tearoom menu, they must be open for breakfast and stay open late. And to the evening crowd they offer sherry and aperitifs along with tea and their fine food pairings.

Amy and Babette toasting tea at Crown and Crumpet

We were there on the day they first opened and celebrated by returning for their first anniversary. It was going to be an unusually hectic day so we snuck in before the crowds. The annual Chocolate Festival. Crown & Crumpet had already sold out of their seatings for special chocolate-themed teas. So, we accepted our bit of view and wished them well for a busy day and a successful year.

Crown and Crumpet

Dan: “I went to one tea house too many. It was in Wuyi Shan. A pretty girl took 15 minutes to make me a cup of tea. I watched as she meticulously brewed the tea and thought that it could have been done exactly the same way in this same place a thousand years ago.”

Dan Robertson picking tea in Yunnan, China

A common questions to ask a tea professional is how they chose this as their life’s work. One thing that seems to be universally true is that there are many experiences and then there is a single moment. For Dan Robertson, an interest in the culture of tea drew him more deeply into the love of the brew itself and his tea related businesses: The Tea House and World Tea Tours. And, in conducting his daily tea businesses he recreates something of what became his inspirational moment in tea. Tea is served at a traditional Chinese tea table. Your tea selections can be made after tasting teas and savoring bit of tea talk. Fifteen minutes? Maybe more, if you get Dan started on his stories? The pretty girl?

He can tell you about bamboo tea, pocket tea, and other more extreme methods of processing the rare leaf. He even shares a tale of one Chinese tour guide who picked a large amount and transformed the bus into a mobile drying room – bus tea.

Dan has also studied Chinese culture and language for many years, teaches Tai Chi and delights in an evening of fast-paced Mah Jong. Tea conversations can quickly drift into many other areas. Learning about the art and craft of fine teas is so much more interesting when we know the stories of the people and life in other countries.

Drinking Bamboo Tea

I’ve had the good fortune to be his next-door-booth-neighbor at World Tea Expo, to attend his classes, to enjoy several lengthy tea chats by phone and to be part of his 2009 China Tea Tour. Dan’s tea education, like many of the pros we will feature here, is the result of a personal journey. Most are not just self-taught but had to write their own curriculum. They started before STI (Specialty Tea Institute) and other tea schools. They traveled to the countries of origin, observed the complete process, talked with the manufacturers and the exporters. And they know the world history and literature as well. It’s a big picture. And most of these great teachers emphasize knowing culture to know the leaf.

Beginning as a documentary filmmaker in 1989, Dan has traveled throughout Tea Land meeting tea growers and manufacturers in the main tea producing countries. His film, For All The Tea In China, focuses the lens on the history, evolution and culture of tea. But it wasn’t until 1995 that The Tea House opened. Then, in 1997 World Tea Tours led their first tour to China. Since then there have been tours to both China (including Inner Mongolia and Tibet) and India with plans to expand into Japan, Ceylon and Vietnam in 2010 and 2011.

Lecture and tasting with Fujian Tea Manufacturer

Dan Robertson is also a tea educator and everyone who visits his shop becomes a student. Like many of the tea people in the early days of importing tea to the U.S., he realizes the importance of sharing the picturesque background of tea with newcomers. From small school groups who visit his shop to the larger venues at World Tea Expo – he customizes the message of tea. His topics vary from a basic Tea 101 and legends of tea to more specific growing and manufacturing techniques. But to every tea conversation, he brings an authenticity built on an investment in time and study of the people and places of tea as well as the leaf.

≈ ≈ ≈

With the rapidly growing interest in premium teas, there is also an increased need for experienced teachers. One of the most frustrating aspects of the US tea industry now is how to qualify the expertise of our industry spokespersons.

Some of the most experienced tea people, our mentors and icons, tend to shy away from the Expert label. It may be that the more you know, the more you realize you don’t yet know. And someone who might seize the label to draw media attention could have done very little to develop true expertise.

Here in our Who’s Who in Tea Land section, we are seeking out the people who have invested time in study, travel and tasting. But there will also be features on the local tearoom owners and creative writers. Each will have an interesting story and a bit of wisdom to share. We will to point to their particular areas of expertise and help you come to know the people of passion in tea.

To date, I’ve been recounting our group’s meandering through Beijing. These few articles barely do it justice to the great city of history, culture and the world of tea but I’m anxious to move on. We’re still a long way from the most famous tea provinces. While I’m committed to keeping the tour on schedule, I’m chomping at the bit to tell some more tea-specific stories.

The upcoming post will have our group boarding the train to Inner Mongolia. Some of the highlights will include the overnight train trip, teatime on the train and the capital city of Hohhot. From here we went by bus to a music festival on the high grasslands – the steppes. The tea aspect here is a milk tea made from compressed bricks. One is the traditional tea served with our meals and the other was the tea prepared at a more remote site. Mode of transportation for this adventure was horseback.

Following the adventures in Mongolia we fly down to the Yunnan Province. Think Puerh tea and some amazing experiences. We made our own teacakes and hiked into the jungle to pay our homage to the King of Tea Trees. We may not have uncovered the secret ingredient but we all learned more as we experienced the process first-hand. Bamboo Tea? Stayed tuned.

So, I invite you to stay tuned and live vicariously through my experiences. Feel free to comment, ask questions or press delete if I go on a bit too much.

We were fortunate to have many non-tourist-track adventures on the trip. One was a visit to the home of Auntie Wang. She and her entire family welcomed us into their home for a cooking class and then a feast of our products.

Dumpling Making

Following the meal, she shared the story of how they had begun a move to their new home. We were invited for tea. Imagine the entire busload of us filling their new apartment. The tea was wonderful and generous. The pots were never empty and the selection diverse. The birds in bamboo cages sang from the terrace as we sipped the afternoon away.

We had heard about the kindness and generosity of the Chinese people. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to experience it for myself.  Auntie Wang and her family made sure that the translators told us all to contact her on a return visit.

Auntie Wang & Grandson

I’m not sure that I had thought much about a second trip to China before that time. With so many other places in the world to visit – so many tea places to explore – it hadn’t occurred to me to return. But probably from that day throughout the rest of the tour, I started my mental notes. There were things I would want to do on my next trip. I’ve traveled enough to know that I will not be able to return to every one of my world-favorites.

A return trip to China is a must.

It’s about the tea, of course. But I believe I would want to return even if the passion for the leaf didn’t issue the call. And before I return, I will work more on my language. And I will study some more Tai Chi.

Tai Chi Lesson

We had one class in a magnificent city park. Should the video of the event emerge, it will be hilarious. They positioned us close to one of the experienced teachers so that we could follow the movements. And the best thing I can say is that none of us fell. For that, I am also grateful.

Tai Chi Teachers and Students

What does Tai Chi have to do with tea?

I decided that there is a purposeful elegance about both. And I have a theory that practicing Tai Chi will help me develop my style of serving tea with a Gaiwan. And, in turn, feeling that I can serve tea gracefully in several different cultural styles will me feel more comfortable in other areas of serving and teaching tea.

The phrase I found we used most often is xiexie. It means thank-you. And I don’t think I said it nearly enough.