I'm on a whirlwind tour of Hong Kong having been invited to the very first Hong Kong International Tea Fair as a guest of the Hong Kong Trade and Development Corporation.
This is running concurrently with The Food Fair and two other exhibitions at the amazing Hong Kong Convention + Exhibition centre. (see picture) There is a lot going on.
The crew from Australia (8 people) and New Zealand (me) are great and I would say we are the liveliest delegation here.
As you can see we found our way to the Fine Wines of Italy stand, with the charismatic Eduardo, 2nd from left, who also owns an organic tea company based in Piedmont, Italy.
Now for me to be tasting 100s of Asia's best teas over a two day period is my kind of heaven, there were 250 exhibitors from 10 countries. I have really enjoyed sampling over 10 top white teas from Fujian province.
I might not be a great personal fan of Pu-erh tea but some of the oldest and most valuable vintage Pu-erhs are about to go on sale. There is 10g of a 109 year-old Pu-erh tea up for US$1000, and a 300g slab of a 1950s Pu-erh going for US15,000, now I wonder if the team back home at Bell might like some.....
It is good to see so many Producers here from other parts of the world including our partners in Sri Lanka, Watawala Plantations, and my old friend Vinodh (see picture) from Vintage Teas in Sri Lanka, looks like we are going grey together my friend. Also caught up with Mike Wright from Twinings in the UK, who now owes me dinner on my next visit!
2 comments:
Great to hear about your travels to Hong Kong. I guess that's not too far from you. I've heard there were few Westerners at the show. Then again, I'm not sure what NZ people qualify as actually. Western? Eastern? The best of both worlds? --Spirituality of Tea
Dear Tea Guy,
Please could you tell me what Pu-erh tea is? I've heard people talk about it but have never seen it.
Thanks
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