What a great festival this past weekend!! We’re so fortunate the Rocky Mountain Tea Festival is held locally in Boulder every year. We had a great spot in the shade down by the creek where we set up a booth with lots of free tea to sample and products to sell. People seemed to go crazy for all the deals we had going on and so many people went gaagaa for our iced Red Rocks, a rooibos tea blended with vanilla & almonds. One little girl in particular, probably around 8 years old, really freaked out after tasting a sample, “Oh my god! This is the best tea I’ve ever tasted!!” And this tea had no sugar, just the natural sweetness of the rooibos! So of course her mom bought her some – a healthy drink without sugar that her kid loved?! No brainer… Another group of friends in their early 20’s who were waiting to eat at the restaurant bought us clean out of the rest of our Red Rocks tea after trying samples.
We had fun chatting with the tea festival participants as well as the people waiting for a table to eat at the Dushanbe Teahouse and random passerbys from Boulder’s Farmer’s Market on Saturday. We also got the chance to talk to other vendors and reconnect with friends in the tea industry. The hosts of the festival, the Dushanbe Teahouse, were so helpful and generously fed us from their delicious brunch menu each day. Such great hosts! and a gorgeous building… if you’ve never been, it’s a Boulder must-see and good eats!
At the close of the festival on Sunday, I got a chance to attend a pu’erh tea class taught by David Lee Hoffman… pu’erh tea connoisseur and star of Les Blank’s documentary All This Tea (a great flick for tea geeks). My favorite tea we sampled was a phoenix dragon oolong – so complex with fragrant floral notes in the beginning with a roasted finish. I sat with great company during the class, and got to chat some more with Elise of Pearl Fine Tea – such a sweet gal! I snagged this photo from her Twitter account. Check out her other photos from the festival, like this Tibetan Mushroom Tea. We tried roughly 10 different teas in all, steeping them each multiple times, gung fu style. So… I drank waaaay too much tea within a 2 hour window, after not eating for a few hours, and left the seminar amped up and spinning (even though this photo looks like I’m about to fall asleep while sipping tea.)
In any case, I highly recommend attending the festival next year to any one remotely interested in tea. There’s so much to learn and so many good teas to try!