PA Tea Festival - Vendors, Part III

Tucked behind the tasting building were a few additional vendors, including Nishchal Banskota of Nepal Tea. Also a sponsor of the tea festival, Nishchal offers a variety of organic premium Nepalese teas. Nishchal proudly gives back to the community, making a difference thru tea.

Jo Johnson from New York City represented her business A Gift of Tea where you can discover a unique tea experience from elegant to novelty. Jo also presented a wonderful Tea and Cheese Pairing session on the second day of the event. Darlene Meyers-Perry of The Tea Lover's Archives set up in this area also. And Tea Life Brand out of King of Prussia was here on Saturday.

We were blessed with a beautiful day full of glorious sunshine and blue skies that provided perfect tea drinking weather, particularly on Saturday when the morning temps were a bit chilly.

The Mad Hatter, aka Dennis Mawhinney, joined in the fun. Dennis presented a program on crafting homemade tea flavored vinegar. An entertaining and enthusiastic speaker, he captured the attention of his audience with his energetic style and offered simple ways to combine tea with vinegar to create unique culinary delights.

The giant chair offered a touch of whimsy where attendees could snap a photo with some die-cut tea decor, from tea pot and tea cup to hats and tiaras.

Thank you to everyone that helped make this first annual PA Tea Festival a success. Susanna and Nancy are looking forward to planning and coordinating next year's event, to be held the same time, Friday, September 28 and Saturday, September 29, 2018 in the gardens of The Rosemary House and Sweet Remembrances Tea Room. Don't forget to mark your calendar! Check the website for updates and details! And if you're interested in sponsoring the festival, contact Susanna.

PA Tea Festival - Vendor, Part II

Sisters Tina Sam of The Essential Herbal and Maryanne Schwartz of Lancaster County Soapworks shared a booth at the festival. Tina has a wide variety of herbal publications from soaps to incense to creating your own tea blends to healing herbs. The Essential Herbal was a sponsor of the festival this year. Thank you!

 Maryanne created unique tea scented soaps for this event along with her hand worked glass tea pot beads. No two alike, these little vessels are special in their own way.

Bee Bee's All Naturals featured a wide variety of unique honey with flavors that range from tumeric and black pepper to just plain honey. Beeswax candles and honey flavored candies rounded out her booth.

 Leaf & Twig traveled from Greensburg, PA to join in the festival. They offered hand crafted teas and powders, herbal blends, and classic tea samplers.

 Erin Bradley and Janet Meyers of Tea by Two from Bel Aire, MD had a colorful display of tea time treasures and teas to sample. They transported a portion of their gift shop to delight and entice all.

 A special thank you to all the vendors located on Rosemary Lane. It was fun to stroll along this little street of unique tea related treasures, sample some lovely teas, and receive a complimentary shopping bag from Janet and Erin.

PA Tea Festival - Vendors, Part 1

Along Rosemary Lane, behind the lecture hall, we had a wonderful row of assorted vendors. Representing Essenay Special Teas from Philadelphia, PA you could find a beautiful assortment of puerh cakes in all sizes.

 Mike and Debbie Raab of Tea for All from Trenton, NJ had a sampling of their flavorful teas, a variety of tea shirts to select, and assorted tea vessels to consider. Tea-for-All was a sponsor of the 2017 PA Tea Festival. Thank you! Mike and Debbie Raab are certified tea specialists from the Specialty Tea Institute. Mike is also the currant president of the Mid-Atlantic Tea Business Association, also a sponsor of the PA Tea Festival.

Marisa Lightfoot of The Virginia Tea Co. carries certified USDA organic teas and certified Fair Trade teas. She offers organic and loose leaf teas online.

Local Mechanicsburg, PA vendor, Mary Carnahan from Virginia Road Candles & Gifts features soy and lotion candles. She finds vintage tea related pieces and fills them with her beautiful candles. Each vessel can be returned to its original use after the candle has been enjoyed. We are grateful for the many vendors that joined us last month for this first annual event.
 

PA Tea Festival - Food Vendors

 Chef Dani from The Red Brick Bakery & Tea Room set up a food booth in Rosemary Alley alongside the row of vendors. She brought a delicious array of chicken salad, barbecue, soup, cookies, scones, tea and pastries for festival attendees. The supersized chocolate chip cookies were Cedar's favorite!

The Red Brick Bakery and Tea Room is located in Red Lion, PA. We were fortunate that Chef Dani and her team were willing to travel and cater for this event among her busy schedule.

For a peek into Afternoon Tea Service in the Red Brick Tea Room, check out this blog post from 2014 when our family headed to Red Lion to enjoy a special tea.

There was plenty of seating available in Rosemary Lane to sit down and enjoy your luncheon selection.











In Sweet Remembrances Tea Room, Nancy was serving either a Cream Tea or a One Plate Afternoon Tea with your choice of a pot of tea. This life size menu board, placed in the garden listed all the options that were available.

The Afternoon Tea included a few different tea sandwiches (Chicken Salad on Croissant, Swiss Cheese & Sundried Tomato Tarts, and Hummus with cucumber & red onion), fresh fruit, English Cream Scone with cream and jelly, Carrot Cake Mini Muffin and a Shortbread Teapot Cookie. The sandwich variety was different on the second day of the event.

The Cream Tea included the English Cream Scone with cream and jelly, a slice of Orange Glazed Poppyseed Tea Bread, and fresh fruit.

                                                                                        Seating was available in the tea room and also in the garden.

The garden seating was most popular on Friday, but with the temperature drop overnight, seating in the tea room on Saturday was a welcome relief to the chillier morning temps.

PA Tea Festival - Vendors in the Red Barn

Tucked in the Red Barn between the Tea Tasting area and the Speakers area were two fun vendors. Tea & Whimsey from Port Republic, MD featured a booth where you could find a fun variety of tea pots, cozies, strainers, tea and more. Essentially your source for one of a kind, unique tea accessories.

Also located in the red barn was Karen Donnelly of Greenhalgh Tea out of Thornton, PA. Karen features select, single estate tea and blends. In addition, she concentrated on traveling tea service with perfect petite tea pots wrapped and ready to travel.

Karen (in pink) offered tea tastings at her booth also.

There was a steady stream of visitors through the barn as it was a convenient connecting point to the gardens and Rosemary Lane where a myriad of vendors were located.

PA Tea Festival - Japanese Tea Ceremony

Tucked in a quiet and peaceful section of the garden was an outdoor demonstration of the Japanese Tea Ceremony. We were fortunate to be able to welcome Sensei Todd from the Gessha Japanese Tea House out of York, PA. This is a private Japanese tea house that brings a touch of Japanese culture to southcentral Pennsylvania.

Both teacher and student were eager to share their knowledge about the Japanese tea ceremony, in the Urasenke tradition. Festival attendees were able to sample a personally hand whisked bowl of ceremonial grade matcha after being offered a traditional Japanese sweet. As the student prepared the matcha, the teacher looked on and gently guided him in the process. As stated in their mission, they are eager to promote awareness of this art through lectures and demonstrations.

 The two morning programs on Friday and Saturday featured a presentation by Sensei Todd, where he discussed matcha tea, health benefits, and the increasing popularity of this beverage. He shared about the different utensils required to make matcha, including the chawan (bowl) and the chasen (bamboo whisk). The host aims to serve the guest the most satisfying bowl of tea possible as they enjoy this 'once in a lifetime' moment. Nancy sat down during the festival and enjoyed a bowl of matcha, and it was indeed very satistying.