Hooty Tea Travels – Preparing for Tea Festivals and Expos

Since diving deep into the tea world, I have been going to tea festivals 2-4 times a year, some local, and some I travel to. With more tea festivals popping up each year, I can see myself going to even more. Be sure to check out World of Tea’s festival schedule to find a festival near you!

With the World Tea Expo 2018 coming up, I am getting ready to tea binge and fill my suitcase full of tea! Here are some tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way, for both tea enthusiasts and business. Some points are a wink to vendors to step up their game.

Oolong Owl’s Tea Festivals and Expo Prep!

Water – Despite drinking a whole lot of tea, water is handy to reset your palette. You can be drinking chocolate tea, then a few steps later drinking a delicate high mountain oolong, so a sip of water to wash out lingering flavors helps when you are judging tea to buy. Some people find all that caffeine is dehydrating, so water helps if you are doing all day tea drinking. I like to bring a tea thermos full of water. If I didn’t have enough tea, I fill it with tea on the way out.

Bring snacks or figure out where food is – Convention centers are great at having no closeby food options, limited amounts of food that sell out, or overpriced AND crappy food. While at the Portland tea festival in 2017, there was 1 vendor who had steam buns and tea eggs, all which were gone by around Noon, and afterward there were no food options. A number of times I’ve eaten overpriced sad cold french fries at convention center cafeterias. Sometimes you will find a tea booth or two that sell tea treats and those go fast because there is no other bloody food plus the treats are so cute. Despite how delicious that matcha donut is, I need something greasy, carby, and meaty without caffeine to chase off the puer gut rot. That said, I found bringing some protein bars help keep me going.

This is a side tip for you tea festivals organizers or vendors, please OMG sell more food!  I know food trucks will make a killing as snacks only do so much and it’ll keep people at the festival instead of leaving for food then not coming back. Hell, I’ve seen booths that have mints stapled to business cards attract a crowd. Tea makes people hungry!

Bring your own cup small tasting cup – You will be drinking lots of tea samples. Many tea festivals I’ve been to will give you a shopping bag and a cup when you enter the festival. Some do not give out cups or run out quickly. If you know the festival will not give you a cup, or you will be arriving late, be sure to bring your own. I recall one World Tea Expo gave out cups, I was there 15 minutes before the opening of the first day, and they were out of cups!

Yes, often they have paper or plastic cups at each booth, but drinking hot tea out of disposable often tastes like paper/ plastic and then burns your fingers. Drinking out of a real cup makes for a better tea experience. You also cut down a lot of waste. Consider each booth has 3+ teas, times 40 booths, you got a lot of trash.

I wrap my cup in a cloth bag. Many booths would be happy to give your cup a rinse with hot water to keep it clean. I’ve been bringing this same cup to conventions for a while now, it is cool to see the ruyao get stained over time. I prefer using my own cup as it feels familiar to me and doesn’t burn my fingers.

Extra Bags – If you are involved in the online tea community, chances are you have those tiny zip bags that ruin your Amazon recommendations. I also got extra bags from my tea purchases. I take little bags as they are handy for sharing and samples. With extra bags, you got a bag to pass a little to a tea friend you just met. Found a cool puer cake or insane sized fu brick you can’t handle yourself? You got a safe storage bag to hold your tea rather than some dodgy things involving the ladies bathroom and paper towels. I have also done shenanigans of expressing interest in buying a sample, the tea sellers say they don’t have sample bags, and I whip out a bag.

Having some little baggies is a great way to protect your tea. I’ve been literally been handed a full, unwrapped puer cake, expected that the shopping bag was enough. Fellow tea blogger Lazy Literatus managed to make a puer cake smell like a donut that was also in his bag…. so yeah, bring some baggies and stash them in your shopping bag.

As a side note, a pen is also handy to label said baggies. I have some tea from last year that I promptly forgot what they were.

Wrapping Material – If you plan to buy teaware or puer cakes, bring bags and bubble wrap.  What I find really strange is how tea sellers who sell teaware do not have adequate wrapping for your purchases. Unless it comes in its own dedicated box, you will lucky to get a paper bag or a scrap of bubble wrap. I am not joking, off the top of my head I purchased 5 clay teapots, 3 glass mugs, 3 glass pitchers, 2 travel tea tumblers, and at least 8 cups over the years at festivals and all I got between them was 1 paper bag and 1 shrink wrap. The 3 mugs were sold in dedicated boxes and fine for travel. I am assuming most sellers bring their teaware in large boxes and reusable wrapping material or want the wrapping material to take home leftovers. I was lucky the year I bought 4 pots and I had a padded camera bag.

If you are traveling out of town for a tea festival, especially if this involves a plane or shipping stuff home, what I like to do is fill my carryon suitcase with bubble wrap saved from online purchases. Whatever I don’t use I can leave at the hotel to recycle, but more often than not, I end up giving extras away. All the tea festivals I travel for I am only there for a few days, which both are during the summer, and wrapping a $100 teapot in thin dirty clothes seems wrong.

Shipping things home – When I go to the World Tea Expo, I’m flying in and out of Vegas with just carry on. I managed to acquire way too much stuff that I cannot fit in my suitcase. It is massively cheaper to ship my extras home than pay checked luggage round trip (checked=$40-$50 roundtrip, vs USPS $13-$18 for a flat rate box).

On my way out of town, I hit the post office. Some airports have a USPS inside (be sure to check the hours!). Often I find a Fedex/UPS inside convention centers, and hotels have a shipping service, but they are expensive. Note that they will charge you for packing material, though some are nice and won’t charge you for tape (but I have been charged for a roll of tape in past, which is BS).

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The following tips are a bit more tea business related,  but could also be handy.

Something to take notes with – If you are taking any classes, something to take notes with is invaluable. Even if you are going to a 20 booth tea festival, it can be overwhelming. Add in drinking a lot of tea and seeing many products, you will forget stuff. As of this writing, there are 262 exhibitors at World Tea Expo, which is insane to keep track of who does what tea.

I know peers who bring a notebook, but that doesn’t work for me personally as I have a perfectly good phone that can do more things. I am a big fan of Evernote (not #spons in any way) as I can take notes and photo business cards, and then easily search them for my own use later.

Bring Business Cards – The tea world loves business cards and will ask you for one if you are in the tea industry. Many call events like World Tea Expo more of a networking thing and most business happens afterward. Even at the local festival level, tea vendors are betting on future purchases over festival ones. The more I go to tea events, the more it is a socializing and learning.

Even for non-tea business, you will meet cool local people with similar interests. Passing them a business card with your contact info and say, “Let’s chat more again about your puer storage, email me.” is way less intimating and creepy than asking for their phone number or social media contact.

Stapler – This is the one item I forget every year and regret. Often a booth will give you a business card, pamphlets, ordering sheets, and samples… then all into the shopping bag they go and mix in with all the other samples and papers. You will forget what sample was from who and have a huge mess to sort through. I love the vendors who give you a folder, or staple it all for you – they know the score.

Other goodies to bring, things to do, or research for full Owl Scout mode: Portable power bank/extra batteries for phone/camera, comfy shoes, promo swag, teas to share, sleeping aids as drinking tea from 10-6pm + afterparties with more tea = no sleep, your tea budget (wishful thinking), classes/events prebooked – if not prebooked, book ASAP when you arrive, map out where the bathrooms are, and list of must-visit vendors/purchases so you do not get derailed.