Right now take advantage of $3 off the two day tickets using the discount code “showmethetea”. 2017 Midwest Tea Festival tickets.
Join us for 2017 at the Midwest Tea Festival
Meet us at the Midwest Tea Festival in September, 2017!
Join us for 2017 at the Midwest Tea Festival
Tea Lover Teas and Tea Lover Gift Baskets will be heading to Kansas City, Missouri in just a few short weeks – the weekend of September 9-10th, 2017. Are you tea-curious? Looking for a unique tea gift for a tea lover? Spent the day or weekend at this expanded tea-centric event having an experience you will not soon forget.
The 3rd Annual Midwest Tea Festival is a full weekend in 2017! September 9 from 10am-4pm and Sept 10 from 11am-4pm. same venue as 2016, the Ararat Shrine Temple. Plenty of parking and easy to get to.
With a full weekend, we’ll have twice the number of speakers, more tasting cafe sessions and more vendors with a greater variety of tea related items. If you like tea at all, even if you are just “tea-curious”, this is THE event to go to in the Midwest region!
As always, a portion of admission sales go to our local charitable partner.
Tickets will go on sale in tiers, with the first 100 sold being at a super discounted price. Admission will still be available at the door and you will always get a way to taste all the teas on offer, but you are guaranteed a souvenir porcelain tasting cup and goodie bag ($12 value) if you get a ticket in advance.
Great time had by all!
Mark Thompson – Infusion Basics Cafe Session
Stephanie Thompson – Afternoon Tea for Beginners and Transitioning from Caffeine Cafe Session
Advance tickets are also the only way you can sign up for the small group tasting cafe sessions. You can go to up to 2 TOTAL sessions over the weekend. Sessions are still limited in availability by our available session hosts, time and space.
There will still and always be tea to taste for free at the vendor booths. So even if you don’t get signed up for one of those 30 minute small group sessions, you won’t miss out on tea. The main stage and specialty stage speakers we have are also open to anyone to attend so you won’t miss out on valuable tea info, either.
Hit the “Going” or “Interested” buttons at the top of the Midwest Tea Festival home page to make sure you see news and updates on the festival in your feed. To ensure you know right when those discounted tix go on sale, you need to sign up for our newsletter at the website, Midwest Tea Festival (at the bottom of the home page) as it will be announced to those subscribers first. Then it will be announced on the Facebook event page a few days later, then eventually on the Midwest Tea Festival main page (assuming there are still discounted tix available by then!).
If you’d like to volunteer to help out for a day and get in for the other day free of charge, drop us a message here with your email, use the contact form on the website or email us at midwestteafest@gmail.com
Cherry season ergo Cherry Champagne Cuvee jam season – yum!
I interrupt the reporting from the 2017 Southwest Tea Festival to introduce the beginning of the cherry season ergo cherry champagne jam making season.
The cherry season at home here in the San Jose, California area begins in May. The cherry season in Denver does not begin until the end of June. I was with my son and his family in Denver from the end of May until the end of June – so I had to pack up my canning equipment and bring it with me to use during my visit.
I was in Denver to help welcome the last planned grandchild, baby Sol, who arrived early on June 2nd. He has a two year old sister, May, and an eleven year old half-brother Miles. Miles is pictured with me, excited (not) about pitting cherries.
Miles (not) enjoying pitting pounds and pounds of bing cherries.
I pitted pounds and pounds of cherries and made batch after batch of our Tea Lover Gift Baskets Cherry Champagne Cuvee Artisan Jam . I never get tired of making jam. Sipping the champagne throughout might be the reason. A basket of tea, scones and jam are a delicious, thoughtful tea gift idea.
Tea, jam and scones (or in this case eccles cakes) always a great tea gift idea!
2 year old, granddaughter May, enjoying a Denver Biscuit Company biscuit while we waited to be seated.
I usually pack the jam in 4 ounce jars for the tea gift baskets and for sale at Tea Festivals. I pack larger jars for personal use. This year I departed from the norm. I packed the jam in 4 ounce jars and also in 8 ounce jars, then the larger jars for personal use.
Those of you who have purchased our jam and would like to buy more can now buy the 8 ounce size – get more jam and save some money.
Tea Lover Gift Baskets and Tea Lover Teas will have a booth at the Midwest Tea Festival in Kansas City, MO the weekend of September 9th and 10th, 2017. This is our next show.
If you are in the area, come on out and enjoy the two day show. Stop at our booth and say hello. We’d love to meet you.
Cream tea and scones gift from Tea Lover Gift Baskets
Part 3 of 22: Tea Folks take on a great tea gift idea
Sad news. Tea Folks is closed. The website closed – April 30th, 2017.
Helen Schussler had her company table ‘Tea Folks’ next to ours at the 2017 Southwest Tea Festival. She and her assistant were very knowledgeable about tea and very friendly.
Even though her store is closing, she had a great tea gift idea.
Create your own tea blend! Tea Folks was selling a variety of delicious teas and tea blends. What was unique to Tea Folks is that they also offered an option to make your own tea blend. The adventurous tea drinker picked a plain tea base; green, black, or herbal tea. Then there were many taste tempting options to add to the plain tea base to create your own tea blend (see the photo below).
We saw many people throughout the Festival take advantage of the opportunity to make their own signature tea blends. So I knew this was a great tea gift idea before I approached Helen later in day on Sunday and asked her opinion on what a great tea gift idea would be.
Keep a look out for other tea companies that offer the opportunity for you to make your own tea blend. Local to me, Steepers in downtown Campbell, CA, has a tea blending station where one can create their own tea blend. If you know your gift recipient well, create a signature tea blend for them with their favorite flavors. If you do not feel that brave, give them a gift certificate so they can create a tea blend themselves. If possible, share the experience with the gift recipient. A recurring theme in great tea gift ideas is sharing yourself and tea with someone you care about.
Part 2 of 22 Wholesale tea company Tealet at the 2017 Southwest Tea Festival
Representing the wholesale tea company Tealet at the Southwest Tea Festival this year – 2017 – were Founder and CEO Elyse Petersen and her brother, Michael Petersen, Marketing and New Media Director (and photographer extraordinaire), as well as Rie Tulali, General Manager and other team members.
Tealet partnered with Naomi Rosen of Joy’s Teaspoon to present the Southwest Tea Festival.
Tealet’s mission is to connect tea buyers directly with small family farms around the world. Through Tealet, tea lovers can learn more about the people behind their teas, and access quality teas from around the world. Tea growers can become empowered to take their specialty tea craft to the next level of quality and consciousness.
Their goal is to be a transparent platform for the tea industry. In turn tea lovers get to experience better quality tea and provide a sustainable future for tea.
Tea Taster’s Box and loose tea
Close up Tea Taster’s Box
Elyse Petersen, CEO Tealet
The Tealet grower network is composed of family farms and independent cooperatives in 8 different countries and 15 different growing regions, all with a dedication to their craft and their communities. Elyse explains, “Through our online platform you can trace our teas from field to cup. From videos from the tea gardens, to detailed profiles of each farm, we have designed our platform to make it simple for you to source the best teas from independent growers around the world”.
I encourage you to check out the videos and the teas descriptions at their online tea chest. Very well done documentaries personally introducing us to tea farmers around the world. I found it a very unique experience.
A way to help support these small family growers is through purchasing a tea subscription.
$49.95 (at this writing) for a two month supply of tea; 60 grams of a variety of teas direct from the grower – enough to make 120 cups of tea – enough to share. You will be able to connect with the grower and learn more about their community and tea cultivation history via online videos and content for each tea.
In answer to my question, Elsye’s great tea gift idea is their four tea Global Tea Taster Box $50. It cannot be ordered directly from the website but send her an email and she will make it happen for you.
Read their Blog, or sign up for their newsletter. They distribute the Tea Journey publication and Tea 101 videos. To further support their efforts, tea shirts (get it, tea shirts J) are available for sale online.
New Green Tea Magnet & Infuser Set
Green Tea Magnet & Infuser Set, introduced recently by the Charles Viancin Group (known worldwide for their nature-inspired silicon lids and kitchen/bar tools) is a very attractive, fun new tea infusion set – a great tea gift idea.
Their products can be viewed and purchased at their online store – just opened in 2015. On their website, I did not see information that their products can be found in any brick and mortar stores. I have not ordered one yet.
I read about and saw the photo for this new tea infusing set in the March, 2017 Kitchenware News trade magazine under the Gadget of the Month section and was immediately attracted. To date, I have not found any tea related anything sporting actual tea plant art – and tea plants with their flowers are very beautiful indeed. That was the first thing that attracted me to this new set – that the form resembles the tea plant.
New Charles Viancin Group nature inspired tea accessories
I personally like using silicon products in the kitchen. They are colorful, flexible, clean easily and are almost indestructible. This product is dishwasher safe, oven safe up to 250 degrees and BPA free. A favorite of ours and another great tea gift idea are the silicon Tuffy Steepers available through Tea Lover Teas.
Beyond the silicon, I felt good about the stainless steel basket. The precision holes seem small enough to keep rooibos and herbals inside the infuser basket not floating around in our infusions. But there are enough holes to allow water to move freely over the leaves. Not all infusers can do both.
What is unique about this set is the magnet. On the bottom of the silicon tea plant (handle) is a magnet. We use this magnet to lift the infuser basket out of the water. Our hands stay dry and clean. There are matching accessories, we can buy separately, in which to set the infuser basket. The mug has a very artistic rendering of a tea plant painted on it. The mug comes with another version of the infuser basket. Check out their website under tea accessories for more information and a video of the Green Tea Magnet infuser set.
If you would like to try out a Charles Viancin Group product before making a purchase, check out tomoson.com. Once you set up a free account with Tomoson, you can apply to get a Charles Viancin overboil ring free in exchange for reviewing the ring on your social media sites. Sadly, they do not have their tea accessories available to review currently.
Friends of “R” House Annual Spring Tea
A great tea gift idea: take a friend out to a special afternoon tea hosted by the staff of an historical venue.
“R” is Rengstorff House, the oldest historic home in Mountain View, CA, located at 3070 N Shoreline Blvd AND one of the finest examples of Victorian Italianate architecture on the West Coast hosts an Annual fundraising Spring Tea.
I heard of their event from a tea meetup group and learned it sells out. So I stayed up late the night before the tickets became available and at the stroke of midnight, I was able to access Eventbrite and secure two tickets for a favorite friend and I.
We were very pleased with the entire event from start to finish. A volunteer greeted us in the parking lot and directed us both to parking and where to sit once we entered the house. A thoughtful, welcoming touch.
My friend and I were seated in the cozy music room at a table for four with two other women, with whom we enjoyed chatting and getting to know. The table was set beautifully. We each had a mismatched teacup and saucer set to enjoy with our meal. We were given the opportunity to purchase our teacup and saucer set after the tea, all proceeds going to Rengstorff House.
Rengstorff House
Beautifully set afternoon tea table at Rengstorff House Annual Spring Tea – tea gift ideas.
Rengstorff House Annual Spring Tea favors, unique tea centerpieces and teacup and saucers tea gift ideas.
Design with Flowers and Ralston Florists provided the unique and attractive table centerpieces, they were available for sale after the event too.
Prompt volunteers kept our tea cups filled with Peach Strawberry, Earl Grey Floral or Boysenberry Decaffeinated teas. We enjoyed Mimosas or Punch cocktails to start. The tea foods were catered by Lisa’s Tea Treasures.
Rengstorff House Annual Spring Tea was catered by Lisa’s Tea Treasures located in Santana Row, San Jose, CA.
For the scone course, we were given one each of peach passion and cranberry orange scones accompanied by lemon curd, strawberry preserves or Devonshire cream.
The sandwiches were fresh and tasty. We each were given a tea sandwich of pesto, traditional cucumber, chicken waldorf, classic egg salad and aged cheddar cheese and tomato fillings.
Desserts were sweet and simple: chocolate iced eclairs and tartlets.
Rengstorff House Annual Spring Tea floral arrangments by Design With Flowers and Ralston’s Flowers.
Rengstorff House Annual Spring Tea Lisa’s Tea Treasures catered sandwiches: pesto, traditional cucumber, chicken waldorf, classic egg salad, aged cheddar cheese and tomato tea gift ideas.
Rengstorff House 150th Anniversary Celebration, May 6th, 2017 from 11 – 4. 3070 N Shoreline Blvd, Mtn View, CA. Antique car show, demonstrations, lectures, crafts for kids, live music and food trucks.
Rengstorff House volunteers encouraged us to come back on Saturday, May 6, 2017 from 11 AM to 4 PM for the 150th Anniversary Rengstorff House event. For the 150th Anniversary celebration, “R” House will host an antique car show, demonstrations, lectures, crafts for kids, live music and food trucks. Sounds like another great gift idea!
When we were finished with our meal, one of the docents volunteered to bring us on a tour of the house. It was a great way for my friend and me to end our delicious afternoon tea at the Rengstorff House. This is an event we recommend and in which we plan to attend again.
