James Norwood Pratt's take on Slow Food Nation Tea

Four Thousand Experience Tea at Slow Food Nation
650 words or so by James Norwood Pratt

It was a milestone of sorts in America’s tea history: probably the largest tea party in American history; unquestionably the most sophisticated in terms of the quality and variety of teas served; and beyond sophisticated in terms of the hosts. Some of America’s foremost tea professionals joined together to serve tea at the Slow Food Nation food festival held Labor Day weekend in San Francisco. The three-day event thrilled all involved.

A colleague from the festival’s wine sector commented afterwards: “The tea pavilion was the most successful of all areas it seemed to me. It was closer to the vision of Slow Food in experience as well as quality. Kudos to all of you for your fine presentation, highest quality of leaf, and true sense of presence.”

Tea was one component among others—bread, wine, olive oil, fish, charcuterie, chocolate, coffee, spirits, etc.—each with its “pavilion” inside a cavernous converted pier at Fort Mason. Unlike all the other Slow Foods, each of which simply offered a variety of tastes, the Tea Pavilion also provided an experience. Guests were introduced to knowledgeable tea professionals and seated at tables where they watched as extraordinary teas were described, prepared and served to them in an endless stream for 15 to 20 minutes. The five tables, each slotted to provide drainage into a catchment, were built specially for tea preparation and seated 8 to 10 participants, all within easy ear-shot and arm’s reach of the host preparing and explaining the teas they were drinking. A fabric enclosure around each table provided a tea room sense of cozy seclusion conducive to absorbing tea appearances, smells, tastes and discussion. The design of the Tea Pavilion, like the concept itself and its execution, was under the curatorship of Alice Cravens and Greg Dunham, proprietors of San Francisco’s Modern Tea.

Alice injected tea into the event’s initial planning and spent almost a year shepherding the project to fruition. Colleagues from near and far answered her call to help staff the event: MEM Tea Imports (Boston), Lu Yu and Perennial Tea Room (Seattle), Rishi (Milwaukee), and Adagio, Numi, Red Circle, Modern Tea, Silk Road, Teance and Urasenke from the Bay Area.

Out of some 10,000 ticketed attendees, roughly 4,000 stopped by the pavilion for tea---and consented to wait in line. Tea people found it pleasantly disconcerting sometimes to have more people lining up for tea than for coffee, the pavilion next door. Tea, the primordial slow food, could be offered in turn to no more than 800 persons per session. Response was uniformly enthusiastic from attendees exiting the pavilion and exclaiming they’d greatly enjoyed experiencing true tea. Presenters took pleasure in sharing their most extraordinary teas for the occasion, so that guests were treated to examples of Matcha or Da Hong Pao or Puer, say, fit for high priests and princes, served by some of America’s leading tea lovers like Winnie Yu, Joshua Kaiser, Ned & Catherine Heagerty, Brian Birkee , Jason Chen, James Labe, David Lee Hoffman, Angela Justice and Sina Carroll. Along with twenty some others, the all-star backfield included Mark Mooradian, Alicia Paullin, Valerie Turner, and Doug Livingston. As “greeters” out front stood Perennial Tea Room’s Julee Rosanoff and James Norwood Pratt.

Working together to promote tea to a tea thirsty multitude, we were conscious of representing some sort of Honor Role of the Tea Trade, bona fide comrades in a community which embraces us all. Together we felt we saw Americans take another Giant Step towards eventually becoming a tea consuming society. Among us were some old enough to remember song lyrics like “By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong.” Slow Food Nation greatly outnumbers Woodstock Nation already, and from this time on tea is a vital part of it.

Getting Ready

Hello Everybody!
Lots of details are being worked out and we found out yesterday that in the last week ticket sales for Slow Food Nation have gone from about 30% to 70% sold - that was quick! Here are some of the logistics you have been asking for:

Schedule:
Here is how the Google Spread sheet schedule looks to date. (If you have problems seeing it please let me know - I've attached a pdf version to your email notification about this blog entry.)

Please let me know if there are conflicts in your schedule and also, if you see an empty slot that you would like to pick up, please let me know ASAP (and thank you mucho). We are lightest on the Saturday evening shift, but you may notice some doubling up that may not be needed. I am confident it will all fall into place with the positive encouragement you've all shared. Once this is firmed up, we can develop a general tea list schedule to help our greeters guide attendees to each tea table.

Orientation:
Facilitators, some of you have requested getting together ahead of time to walk through what you might be asked to do to help the Tea Enthusiasts. We'll have two orientations next week at Modern Tea so that you can become familiar with the layout of the tea area, timing, carrying hot water, cleaning, etc. and from that create an updated orientation guide for consistency's sake and for those who can't attend these meetings. If you are an Enthusiast or Greeter that lives in the Bay Area and would like to attend, I encourage you to do so - it will only help to shed light on everyone's needs.
Here are the times we've scheduled - please email me back to confirm which one you can attend:
Tuesday, August 26th, 6pm
Wednesday August 27th, 10am

Getting in to the Taste Pavillion:
You are now on the volunteer list officially, which means you will be able to get into the Tea Area pretty much anytime during the SFN event beginning Friday morning. Please email me your cell phone number if you have one and how you would like your name to read. Your badge will be at the entrance. But if you want to see any other part of the Taste Pavillion, you will need a real ticket and I don't want anyone disappointed. We will let you know what complimentary tickets are available in the upcoming days and hope to get all of you something fun to join in on.

Setup & Breakdown
I think we have enough help for set up on Friday morning, but we will also need help breaking down on Monday morning. Please let me know if you are available. You are welcome to be part of both, of course.

What else? More to follow, in the next few days with picking up loose ends. I think tea will stand out because of all of your involvements - thank you so much!!!
All My Best,
Alice
415-250-0560 mobile anytime

Officially Volunteering

Hello Everyone:
The time for wordy descriptions and waxing prose is over, from me anyway! Here are the key points we want to take action on ASAP:

TIME SLOTS: It is time to start filling all the time slots for volunteers. Please drop me an email about your schedule if you haven't already done so. Here are the shift times SFN is organizing for all of the food areas in the Taste Hall:


Friday August 29th: 5pm - 10pm
Saturday August 30th: 10am - 3:30pm
Saturday August 30th: 4pm-9:30pm
Sunday August 31st: 10am-3:30pm
Sunday August 31st: 4pm - 9:30pm

There will also be set up and breakdown opportunities for those who love the behind the scenes before & after...

Also, while we think we have enough tea "enthusiasts" with the number of tea people who have generously volunteered, if you know a tea expert who might want to be involved, this is the last opportunity we have to bring them in. Please talk with your tea friends, we don't want anyone left out who might want to be a part of this.

Please email me your specific time requests if we haven't discussed.


COMPLIMENTARY/DISCOUNT TICKETS: While there will be a few complimentary tickets that SFN will give us ( I find out how many on August 5th), you all qualify for a $25 ticket to the Taste Hall(a $45-$65 value). You must apply for this in advance, available on a first come first serve basis. Here is the link where you can sign up for these on the SFN website -- mention in the last dialog box that you are volunteering for a curator.

Wandering around the Taste Hall will not be like wandering around a trade show hall, it will be more like entering 14 different exploratoriums. Each area has an entrance & exit at which you must have your 4 hour ticket stamped in order to enter. Think now if you might have any interest at all in swimming through the nets in the fish area, hand churning your own ice cream or basking in the dappled jar lidded lighting in the pickling/preserves area because you'll want to have an official ticket. If we get enough complimentary tickets we can refund your $25 ticket too. Putting your name in early is a safer bet.

PAPERWORK: Its official, SFN would like you to fill out this donation form in order to track donations and give you a letter confirming your efforts toward a 501 (c)3's cause. This is a google spreadsheet, but you can go through the print option to turn it into a pdf and save it on your own computer. Please shoot me back an email if this causes you any vexing moments and I can easily email you the excel spreadsheet. Once completed, you can email your donation form to Erin (erin@slowfoodnation.org) at the SFN office to complete the official form filling task.

That's enough for now - please be in touch and let me know your thoughts - Alice

Brass Tacks meets Potluck

Hello Wonderful Tea People:
We've just met with the Slow Food Nation office and it is time to flesh out who exactly can attend and make tea and who is willing to donate tea and loan us tea ware. Deadline: I need to get a list of donations & people assisting to the Slow Food Nation office by 6/25. Here are a few helpful links:

First, the link to the initial blurb on the Slow Food Nation website about the Tea area of the Taste Hall to give you an idea of how they envision it.

Second, here is the link to the google spreadsheet series where you can fill in what you will be able to bring, whether its yourself, your tea, your teaware or just your good wishes. I've also pasted the link into the column on the right--->

Alternatively, you can just email me, Alice Cravens, and tell me your thoughts.

And here's a recap of what we think we need:

Tea Needs: we are thinking 15 pounds can get us through the Taste Hall event (100 people every hour for 19 total hours for single 4oz tastes at 200 servings per pound = 9.5 total pounds). It looks like we also might need additional tea for making blended beverages that can be put on carts and strolled around both Fort Mason & the Civic Center. We have yet to decide what blended beverages (chai? yak butter tea? soups?) will be carted around and if there will be a charge for them.

Tea People Needs: We need to work out a schedule with 5 tea enthusiasts plus 5 facilitators at each of the 5 sessions of the Taste Hall.

Tea Ware Needs: I'm going into a bit more detail here because I'm realizing the importance of everyone being comfortable with the environment. Conceptually, each of the 5 tables can run with different teaware. The advantage is that we can stretch the imagination and keep our overall teaware numbers low(enough for 2-3 sessions per table), the disadvantage is that we can get complicated in trying to keep different teaware organized. But I think we can keep it to four styles or less. Options:

Let's start with the less familiar to our attendees; gaiwans. Gaiwans would probably need to be handled only by the tea enthusiasts & facilitators because of the potential for those unfamiliar burning their hands. And, with only 15 minutes to vertically educate, you don't want to have to spend a lot of time on how to handle the tea ware. This is a classic tool for making tea for a group and some tea enthusiasts might want to bring their own along with a duplicate set with enough cups for 7 - that is aok, but we just need to plan for it and have the tea enthusiast understand they will be making all the tea with 7 other faces in their gaiwan. But this could also lend itself to quicker multiple steeping experiences if 2oz cups or aroma cup sets are available.










Teapot cups lend some more familiarity and might be an easier way to make some teas needing hotter water that want multiple steepings. This one has a 4oz cup and there are spare cups available.







Tea steeping cups might be a good way for a group to personally make black teas, particularly India black teas. Thank you Maria Upenski, for suggesting these.

And, western style professional tasting cups are a fun way to really get the leaf into peoples faces. I think each attendee could use their own tasting cup,but tea facilitators would need to be more hands on to help with pouring off the liquor here.



Cups: what is not shown is other cup options. Heath pottery has offered 4 oz cups which have a pretty thick body. Between all the generous offers, I think we'll be able to use our thinner cups from many of you instead with the Heath cups for the possible cart/blended beverage option. Again, we just need to decide. You'll notice on the spreadsheet if you are donating tea, there is a column where you can mention your tea ware recommendation.

That's it for the moment. Please let me know your involvement as soon as you can, either by filling out the spreadsheets or emailing me. And please feel free to comment, either directly in this blog or by email. Thanks!

conceptually speaking: tea in the taste hall

First off, what is the Taste Hall? The Taste Hall will be in Fort Mason and its purpose is to allow people to experience food in a way they haven't before. Each curator is trying to make the best vertical education opportunity available to the public who will be paying $35 - $70 per person for their 4 hour experience. Please see Slow Food Nation's Event Overview if you want a sense of the entire event that will take over San Francisco's Civic Center & Fort Mason areas at the end of August.

Tea is officially one of the 14 categories featured in the Taste Hall. We are coming from the viewpoint that tea is probably one of the most original slow foods. Not necessarily because we sip it slowly, but because the most memorable cups of tea are the ones that connect - connect you to the past, to the earth, to the weather, to the grower, to the moment. But I digress from the specific goal here. Sorry.

We think that the best way to provide vertical education about tea (in, ahem, 15minutes) is to have attendees make tea with a person that knows the tea- where they can together see the leaf go from a twisted dry thing back into a leaf and hear the story about that particular tea. Then, the realization that this is just one of hundreds of teas, each with its own story, can begin to expand a person's concept about tea. And they can form a connection to the discovery of tea that we in the industry still constantly enjoy.

This means our list of needs is unusually simple in a way and unusually fun:

1) Taste Hall teas & tea makers: We are asking those that import teas if they would like to be a part of the Taste Hall by bringing in a "slow food" tea(one or several), be an expert at the table and make this tea with the attendees at the table. What is a "slow food" tea? In general, it needs to fit into the realm of "good, clean & fair." Specifically, for example, "clean" means that no pesticides or liquid chemicals were used on the plant at all, not just that the leaves were picked before pesticides were used and could be certified "pesticide free."

2) Discussion groups & more in depth tastings: there will also be the opportunity to lead or co-lead a discussion group or tasting event that focuses on tea. This would be where an attendee would pay ($5-$80) to join in on an event- a comparison tasting of oolongs, a professional tea tasting, a tea and wine "dueling banjos" discussion and tasting are just some immediate thoughts. But you all have more experience than I do on popular tea events. Suggestions are welcome.

3) Tea ware: we are in discussion with Heath Ceramics about an in kind donation of the use of their small cups which would have some applications, but we also have the luxury of our design allowing us to have separate pods for each expert to be with a group of people. This means separate pods can each use different tea ware. We'll want to keep this as streamlined as possible of course but we'll be looking for teapots & cups to borrow for the event and this borrowing would be considered an in kind donation and recognized.

4) Overall organizational assistance: if this event really grabs you and you want to live and breathe it, please let me know. I'll be living and breathing it, but I'll need help!

Comments are welcome. Thanks so much everyone! - Alice

conceptually speaking: tea elsewhere

Slow Food Nation would like every food category to come up with a slow and, ironically, a fast way for someone to be exposed to a story about that food category. this is because it will be difficult for an attendee of the Taste Hall to visit every category in 4 hours.

Numi Teas has graciously offered the use of their carts and one thought is to have these carts outside the Taste Hall (also possibly the Civic Center) pouring "indigenous" beverages. This could be a simple chai, or a yak butter tea (that would grab attention, but to make it tasty...) or something else. If any of you have any suggestions please let me know Also, if the weather is hot, do we succumb to a cold tea, even though most hot countries still drink tea hot?

April 2008 Update

Slow Food Nation is looking for "good, clean & fair" companies interested in financial sponsorship. If you know of any companies that might be interested, please either let me know, or paige@slowfoodnation.org. For in kind donations, please email me, Alice Cravens.

More to follow on the conceptual for the tea portion of the taste hall & workshop opportunities.