Yesterday October 5, Northwest Tea Festival 2009 ended with a great success. People were highly motivated to learn something about teas, and tea experts were knowledgeable enough to answer all the questions asked. This event showed how deep the tea culture took a root in NW area.Representing SA Japanese Green Tea, I had 2 sessions of the tea tasting and shared my knowledge of Japanese tea culture with tea enthusiasts. It was a lot of fun to talk with tea lovers and heard their feedback about our teas directly. Through the sessions, I found Japanese green teas were not appreciated enough yet and felt the need to provide more chances to learn about Japanese green tea.
During the event, my friend, Ken Rudee of Barnes & Watson Fine Teas gave me a cup of tea. That was Pu'er tea harvested in 1979!! The harvest was before I was born. I had never tried such a long-aging tea, and that was fantastic! Even 7th steep, it had strong flavor and deep body without any astringency. I'm not an expert of Chinese tea, but I could tell the tea was very high quality.
