Thursday Tea Things And Talk, Victoria Tea Festival

Hello dear friends and welcome to Thursday Tea Things And Talk. I would love it if you would link up your tea related post at the bottom...tea parties, tea ware, teas, whatever!

I promised some highlights of last weekend's visit to Victoria, BC Canada for the 7th Annual Victoria Tea Festival. We caught the 8:20 am Coho ferry from Port Angeles, Wa, about 15 miles from our house for the 90 minute trip across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Victoria. The Coho just emerged from it;s annual 3 week drydock, all spruced up and freshly painted.

The coho moored behind the Undersea Gardens exhibit, across the street from the Hotel Grand Pacific where we stayed. We were able to get into our room and had a quick breakfast before walking to the festival. This is 1/2 of the Canadian Breakfast we always split...each of us has 1 poached egg, roast potatoes, an English banger sausage and a piece of whole grain toast. It's the best breakfast in town in our opinion.

Then we walked 2 blocks to the tea festival, located at the Crystal Gardens, a Victorian era glass house than once contained a lush garden and a large swimming pool, the first built in Victoria, in fact in all of Vancouver Island which is just across the street behind the Fairmont Empress Hotel.

This year, one of the sponsors was Tea Time magazine, one of my favorite magazines. 

They had a booth giving away the current issue of Tea Time magazine and selling copies of their other publication. 

The booths including local tea companies and the 2 major hotels that serve afternoon tea: The Fairmont Empress:

And the Hotel Grand Pacific who were offering smoked salmon crostini:

There were tea samples everywhere and lots of varieties available for sale. Amazing amounts! I bought a package of 3 flowering tea balls from MayYip tea to send to my daughter-in-law. My favorite booth this year was hand thrown and decorated porcelain tea ware by The Clay Chimera from Kamloops. I thought it was gorgeous! The potter/sculptor was there so I was able to tell her how much I loved her ware. She was about 24. Talented:

There was a schedule of presentations during the afternoon:

They included Planning The Perfect Tea Celebration by the editor of Tea Time Magazine Lorna Reeves,
Tasty Teas for Home health
Cooking With Tea
Korean Tea Ceremony
Coffee From Field To Cup.

I really enjoyed Lorna Reeves presentation especially. She used the Tea Celebrations book as her thematic powerpoint presentation. I chatted with her after and she graciously posed for a photo.

Lorna Reeves was an excellent speaker and communicator and did a wonderful job of explaining how they set up and photographed for an issue as well as how these things could be adapted easily to a home tea party. She passed on several simple pearls of wisdom:

Don't make the centerpiece or floral focus too big. You want to be able to talk to everyone at the table.

Food is basically brown...pep it up with color...herbs and citrus zests are wonderful for that.

Never serve something at your tea party that you haven't tested before hand. Check timing and taste, see how long it can stand, etc. Dry runs encouraged.

Vary your colors, textures and tastes and even the shapes of things. 

Choose one complicated item, but keep everything else simple.

Use favors and place cards to make your guests feel welcomed and treasured.

Remember to check about allergies or foods people don't like. It's terrible to go to a lot of trouble to make things that people can't or won't eat.

Test tea prep time as well, and taste test each tea served with the food it will be served with. Her tea parties have a different tea with each course, but...

It was interesting because the ladies behind me, a group of 4 were talking before the presentation about their desire to do tea parties, but thinking they couldn't...too complicated. At the end, they were deciding what to celebrate first and one had volunteered to host a tea for St. Patricks Day.

So...there you have it. We had a visit to Murchie's Teas later which I will share at another time, but these are the heart shaped macarons they were serving for Valentine's Day:

And a Happy Valentine's Day to you! We are off to a Valentine's Tea Lunch at the Tea Room at Port Gamble. I'll be taking my camera!

And here is the linky! Have a great day and have a cuppa with someone you love!