Malaysia Tea Art & Cultural Expo 2012 Part 1

I would like to apologize to my readers for my one month absence from my tea blogging.  I was away in Malaysia, Hong Kong and China.  I will tell you more about my tea adventures in due course.  


I managed to attend Malaysia Tea Art & Cultural Expo 2012, held in Kuala Lumpur from 16-24 Jun 2012.  I had attended last year's expo at the same venue and had found it very useful; get to see a lot and buy a lot (see 2 July 2011 blog).  The venue for this tea expo was at Tropicana Mall.  This was interesting as the tea expo was conducted in the foyer, right inside the shopping mall on the ground floor.  Getting to the mall for visitors was easy.  I got on the Malaysian train line, known there as the LRT and hop off at the Kelana Jaya stop, where I could catch the 'Tropicana Mall' free shuttle bus to the mall itself.  It was real easy.


This year, I was at the tea expo in the morning of opening day.  I was given a booklet where I could purchase some tea and tea products at special prices (pix 1&2).  I could buy an item from each group on a daily basis.  This meant that if I had attended this expo 7 days in a row, I could buy 7 items from each group.  I purchased 2 pieces of 2011 Xiaguan Cang Er Tuo 250g for 35rm.


There were many stores that offered their tea and teaware for sale.  I could sample the teas that were for sale as well.  You can imagine the amount of tea I sampled during the 2 whole days while I was there.  There was a bubble tea shop set up at the tea expo selling bubble tea (pix 5).  Actually, there were promoting a bubble tea franchise as well.  


One of my tea drinking friends, Jason who had visited the tea expo had commented - "I just came back to Singapore from the petaling jaya tea fair.. It was fantastic!! The qiu Xiang people were there too, and I bought a load of their 2011 nannuo for 100rm for 3 cakes, and I bought this year spring cang'er raw tuo... Both tasted divine, and I just had to buy them.. Btw.. This years cang'er raw tuo won the gold prize for the tea fair.. Only 35rm for 2 tubs. Total bargain!! One of the qiu Xiang ladies even drove me all the way back to my hotel in KLCC because we drank tea till super late.. Awesome people, awesome times."