Festeaval

Some people travel for work, others for beach, others for meeting people others for tea, some for tea water and some for the last three combined.

But lets start at the beginning. No not at the begin of time. Elaborating about the first Planck time would scare most of my readers away and the 11 billion years after that would make this post too long. Lets not start at my birth too, that would be too early. Or the beginning of this blog already over 5 years ago. Or at the start of my unintended break of this blog. Two years of wanting to write but not writing.

No, let’s start at the end of may this year. Or actually a year earlier. At the day I went to Utrecht and came home to discover that….

There was a tea festival in Utrecht (the Netherlands) that day……. Bummer missed it …. So fast forward to this year: The second edition of the Dutch Tea Festival 🙂

The festival was located in an old food factory.

Although small compared to those in bigger countries and bigger festivals it was still a large tea festival for Dutch proportions. I’ve been to smaller events that did not make it, so let’s hope that this festival grows and lives long and prosper.

The site used several buildings with food, tea and music between them. There were two halls filled with stands. About 56 in total. Furthermore there were several rooms for workshops, lectures etc and demonstrations. And there was a lot more space for future growth…

There were stands with very good tea, teas that are not really teas, not so good tea, tea-ware, some chocolate, candy and cards. Tea with food, tea for children, tea with wine and of course just excellent tea 🙂 Tea that we could sample with the tea cup we got when we entered the Festeaval.

The workshops and demonstrations ranged from Chinese/Japanese/Taiwanese tea ceremonies to tea meditation to tea pairing with chocolate to stories about travelling to tea countries, tea and food and introduction to tea. Just to name a few.

Some personal highlights

The meditation session was arranged by the Dutch chapter of the Global Tea Hut.
Now, I have been a member of GTH a few years back (until a drop in finances made me cancel it). But as far as I know there was not a Dutch group back then. This is interesting and something to explore (which I partly did by now, but that’s another story).

For those that do not know about the GTH check out their website and try their membership for a few months. You might like it. 😉

Taiwanese tea ceremony

Hotsoup a very nice online tea shop in the Netherlands. With a nice tea club… And nice to see the people behind it.

What’s this? A tea garden on Dutch soil? Are they really trying to produce tea in the Netherlands? This sounds weird and interesting. I will have to check this out. (I still have to…)

Ah, Cups and Leafs. A tea store in Haarlem that I discovered by coincident last year on my birthday. We had walked through Haarlem (the Netherlands) all day doing a puzzle trail (we actually won and therefore organized one in Amersfoort this year, but that is more of a chocolate story). After the trail we had a nice dinner in Haarlem after which I and Thinkie walked back to the station and what did we found just around the corner? One of those corners that we did not pass during the trail, although we passed about every corner around it. Indeed an unknown tea shop… Unfortunately it was already closed… But I’ve been back a few times since then. One of those place to come back to. Excellent Chinese tea for a Dutch stone and brick store and you can drink it there too. The place to go if you are in Haarlem (together with the excellent museums). And while you are there you might be interested in the more general coffee and tea store that is only 20 meters away from it…

The Pu Erh ceremony. Performed by people from Simon Levelt Groningen… This is a little bit beyond the normal Simon Levelt that I know… A very nice surprise at the end of an excellent day with beautiful weather and tea.

Why did I start this post as if about travelling?

Well… this post is already too long, so I will move that part to another post…

For now I just look forward till the next time this event takes place and becomes better and better. 🙂

Website: http://www.festeaval.nl/