World Tea Festival in Shizuoka

Hello all. Just a note about the World Tea Festival 世界お茶まつり held in Shizuoka, Japan last week. If you're not Japanese you probably were not there unless you work for an embassy here in Tokyo, because I know I didn't see you there. There were a few Chinese pavilions offering some fairly typical oolong teas and of course Taiwan was well represented. There was a short demonstration on Moroccan tea by a Japanese guy who works for the Moroccan embassy and two Moroccan exchange students (they use Chinese gunpowder mixed with spearmint and a full tablespoon of sugar for each guest in a large metal pot with a few small intricacies in the stirring). The Kenyan pavilion was fairly sad, offering tastings of something called "Kenyan breakfast tea" or some other rough generalization of something to satisfy British tastes. The Sri Lankan Embassy was surprisingly well versed in consumption trends around the world and was offering some wonderfully rich Uva tea. The staff member was a bit too quick to bad mouth CTCs - seems like part of some kind of worldwide conspiracy to make poor people feel bad for drinking strong bodied teas. He says that's "tea bag tea", although the Nilgiri CTC I bought in Varanasi was truly wonderful and blew away everything I had ever tasted, including his Uva tea. The Indian Embassy had some darjeeling on hand for tasting (likely 2nd flush) and didn't have too much appeal. It was extremely wet. Their sales booth was rather good, with a St. James darjeeling that was actually flavorful. Japanese people are quite into darjeeling like a lot of the rest of the world, although they don't really count because they know something about living with green tea and know about as much about anything else as my uncle Jimmy. What was promoted as Tibetan butter tea was available for 100 yen. It tasted like chicken broth. It was actually slightly gut wrenching compared to everything around it and I have to conclude that the Japanese people making it didn't have a clue as to what they were doing. They basically had the recipe photocopy out in front of them and used all Japanese ingredients. What can you say? The local tea was, of course, what it was all about. As you all know, Shizuoka is the biggest tea producing region in Japan and every small city association was there promoting. They had some incredible yabukita cha and other senchas. The gyokuro association had a large pavilion, but was too packed to get into. As always, the Vietnamese stand had a couple of brochures and no humans. There was some interesting health related stuff and quite a bit of machinery on display. Most everyone was able to take a tea plant home with them as well. I've got 6 sitting on my balcony waiting to be planted at mom and dad's house this weekend. I tried Korean white lotus tea (fairly smoky in an odd way - with a smooth aftertaste) given out by a guy intent on preserving the secret behind this drink (or so he said). I had Taiwan's answer to darjeeling, "shanpin" (a play on "champagne") I believe it was called. The quality seems to vary widely, but one variety at a Japanese booth was quite good. Most of the Chinese exhibitors didn't seem to speak either Japanese or Chinese, which meant they gave out a lot of refills, but unfortunately couldn't answer any questions about their products. Seems like a lot of money to spend without anything to show for it. An interpreter isn't that expensive. There was something called the "robot cafe" which either I missed or had already broken down earlier in the week. It was next to the Lipton stand, which featured a sort of ticket bubble that you stick your arm in and grab a ticket flying around. I think all the tickets were the same - a sample of apple tea. How sad. How typical. i can't believe Lipton has a tea room in the Tokyo Prince Hotel next to the Tokyo Tower. The people are so nice there, but the tea is typical nasty Lipton conveyor belt droppings. Well, despite my horrific description, it was one of the best days in memory and the Japanese tea was truly magnificent.