2018 World Tea Expo Haul | 2018 World Tea Expo Trends & Thoughts
The World Tea Expo was held at the Las Vegas Convention Center June 12 to 14th. The World Tea Expo is a tea industry-only event to further your tea business with networking and learning. This is the North American hub of tea, so there are farmers or tea sellers getting feedback on their experimental teas. There are many whole sellers here, so if you want tea for your business, you will find the connections here. Other tea sellers use it to display upcoming products. There are classes on selling tea, tastings, blending, and even tea growing.
It was my 5th year to attend the World Tea Expo 3 day tea drinking binge as press. This year felt different as there were fewer vendors. I know I say this every year, but I was busier than the previous year, in particular, was the shorter Wednesday due to long Tea Blogger Roundtable panel and leaving early to beat traffic for afterparties. If you are familiar with my previous coverage of the World Tea Expo, I had an article each day, but this year I am going to break it down by Highlights, Haul, and Thoughts & Trends. For Highlights, I’m going to talk about the interesting teas I found on the showroom floor and events I attended.
I have an Instagram Story section just for 2018 World Tea Expo, so be sure to check that out!
2018 World Tea Expo Show Floor
Note, some of these vendors are wholesale only so you might need to ask your favorite tea shop to carry these products.
Qi Aerista Tea Smart Brewer – I recall seeing the crowdfunding campaign for this tea making machine, but didn’t give it too much thought as it isn’t something I’d buy personally. In person, I was quite impressed with the design. It retails for around $200. There is no plastic contact – all glass or stainless steel parts that touch tea.
What blew me away was the cold brewing function, giving you cold brew in 12 minutes. This machine has app/Wifi controls, and features like tea brewing preset, custom brewing settings down to single degree and seconds control and a 24 hour timer so you can have tea ready in the morning.
Japanese Green Tea In – This is the matcha seller I point to as having my personal favorite matcha, dubbed “Fried Chicken Matcha“. I also recently enjoyed their Mikan and Lemon green tea powder, that I have finished almost 2 bags of the stuff as it has become a part of my weight lifting drink of choice. It was awesome to meet the owner Kei in person. I also got to try their award-winning green tea.
Araksa Tea– This is tea from Thailand and it is impressive and unique. I enjoyed the entire line of teas they had. What set it unique was their two white teas – Arun which was picked in the morning, and Sayun which was picked in the evening. The teas both smell and taste completely different. It seemed a 50/50 split on which white was the better tea. My opinion the best was the night picked one, but the morning pick smelled better.
Bredemeijer USA has some impressive double walled teapots. I was quite the fan of this teapot that was sawed in half.
They also had these perfect fit felt-lined steel teapot cozies for their teapots, in the event you need hot tea for a crazy amount of time.
Lumbini Tea – Is blooming tea out of style for you? Then you’ll love Lumbini Tea’s tea rings and roses. Yes, they have Srilanka black tea rolled to look like roses. Black tea roses would make for the perfect gothic afternoon tea party.
Lumbini also had an impressive black tea at the Global Tea Championship. This is their Dalu Ceylon FBOPF EX SP.
All Japan Matcha & Organic – I visited this booth twice, Tuesday and Thursday. I enjoyed some excellently creamy ceremonial matcha. The stunner was this $200 (or was it $300) bottle of Smoked Japanese Green tea. It was a peaty explosion. I am pretty sure they were videotaping Lazy Literatus and I drinking it.
Boseong Woohae Tea Plantation – Last year there was a handful of Korean tea farmers present, but this year there was even more, all from the Boseong region. Most of them had the same teas as last year, which I quite enjoyed. My favorite of the shops is the Boseong Woohae Tea Plantation This year they had a few interesting teas, like Ume flower. Look at this tea! It was all gone in the first day!
Cameron Tea Taiwan – Cameron Tea is a favorite of mine to visit to get the scoop of Taiwanese teas. Sadly, it was only them and one or two other Taiwanese vendors this year. We cupped some awesome 2018 Alishans and I bought some goodies.
Star Tree Tea – Tea from Mexico???? Well, hibiscus tea from Mexico, with a twist. Their approach was edible teas. Star Tree Tea was filled with various fruit blended with hibiscus, served unfiltered so you can nibble on the tisane. The fruit greatly cut the sourness of the hibiscus, with many fruity flavor options. Drinking their teas made me want to make jello out of them. They had even made sangria with their tea, which smelled pretty awesome.
Ama Tea – Also from Mexico is Ama Tea. They sell amaranth tea and the appearance of this tisane blew my mind.
Steeping it literally sucks the colour of the leaf into your cup. The flavor was on the herby side, without any tartness.
Eat More Tea – My spice collection is nothing to sneeze at (surprise surprise.. tea, yarn, nail polish, lipsticks… what else does this Owl hoard?) Eat More Tea is bloody genius as they’ve created spice blends with tea. On my to-do list is to make my sous-vide tea salmon with Eat More Tea’s Surf’s Up Sencha or Smoky Souchong.
They also sell shortbread tea cookie mixes. Hit up their online shop to buy their spices or if you happen to be in Ann Arbor, MI, be sure to give them a visit (bring me back a tea caramel).
Saku Tea – Saku Tea is based in Bellingham, Washington, so a local company to me. They are getting their wonderful matcha, turmeric, and beet latte blends out there! I lurked at this booth a couple times, getting my matcha on. I’ve reviewed them in the past and highly suggest the Vanilla Maple Jade Matcha blend.
Po Selected – Magnets… how do they work? Po Selected has created magical teaware that thinks outside the box. I threw up a couple videos on my Instagram stories that got so many responses that I could not keep up.
They got 2 new products coming (magnetic and flipable teaware!) but what you can get your paws on now is a just as magical Notin Air Tight canister. As someone who stores so much tea, Po Selected’s canister is a dream.
Myanmar Tea – I don’t know how I missed this vendor as I found them on the last day, but the Guangxi Guozhuang Investment Co Ltd sells Myanmar tea. They had many tongs on display, but also sold a range of their puer in balls and mini cakes. I sampled and was thoroughly impressed with their 2018 White tea, 2008 Sheng Puer, and a shou stuffed into a lime. They told me it is gushu, but honestly, me and Lazy Literatus thought the white tea tasted gooshoey before the vendor mentioned it. I was happy the teas were affordable!
Bukit Sari Tea Plantation – Continuing the trend of sampling amazing white teas, I got wowed by Indonesian white tea that was cold brewed. I need more of that white tea, I believe it is this tea. They also had amazing black teas that ranged from bold to fruity.
2018 World Tea Expo Events
Hunan Tea Presentation
Every year it seems a region of China is sent in full force to the World Tea Expo, and this year is Hunan. They had an hour-long presentation of the teas of Hunan. As part of the entertainment, there was a pretty lady making pretty looking tea with all the hand gestures and grace that I don’t have. We tried a Hunan white, a green that was grandpa styled, and a dark tea. The audience got to fill out an evaluation to give feedback on their teas. It seemed everyone had a favorite, but I liked the dark tea the best.
Tea Bloggers Roundtable Workshop
I was on the panel (nervously, needed more puer) for the Tea Bloggers Roundtable. We held a workshop this year, watching Jeff Fuchs’ The Tea Explorer documentary of his trek through the ancient tea horse road, then commenting on it. If you haven’t seen this documentary, try to get your hands on it as I was absorbed in his dangerous hike in waist deep snow through the mountains, a trek many did to trade various goods and tea.
Everyone had interesting observations on the structure of the film, criticisms of the content, and how they would write about it. I kept thinking OMG Jeff stop rubbing your beard all over the maocha! That’s why I keep finding hairs in my cakes.
World Tea Awards
If you were lucky to catch it, I had live streamed the World Tea Awards on Tuesday. Pacific Northwest did some damage with Oregon and Washington tea companies sweeping up a number of awards – Northwest Tea Festival, The Tao of Tea, and Young Mountain Tea. Much love to Teaformeplease for winning best blogger! The Tea Spot’s Mountain Tea Tumbler won best Brewing Device.
Afterparty @ Tea & Whisk
There was an afterparty at Tea & Whisk, located in Henderson, which is about 20 minutes from the Vegas Strip.
This is a tea shop I’d love to experience without the party setting and write a separate Hooty Tea Travels piece one day. What I liked about Tea & Whisk was the balance of flavored teas, matcha lattes/shakes (Pistachio Houjicha?!?!), but also mess you up puer cakes, traditional teas, and teaware. I managed to squeeze some photos in of the space before I got very tea drunk and the shop was full of people and pizza.
The party was busy and I discovered the amazing pairing of young yiwu sheng puer and feta cheese spinach pizza. The peeps brewing the tea were enthusiastic tea tenders, constantly topping up cups which quickly lead me to be a screeching laughing owl. I tried many teas, many I don’t remember other than a young sheng that had a lot of kick (which they made twice in a row) and an experimental Indian heicha that smelled like goat sheep with a circle of green mold in the middle.
I don’t ever drink tea until 8pm, but I did that day. I started tea at 7am too to get my owl butt to my breakfast buffet. Man I was tired. 3 days of drinking tea all day is killer.
2018 World Tea Expo Haul | 2018 World Tea Expo Trends & Thoughts
