Hong Kong International Tea Fair 2012 Part 1

The Hong Kong International Tea Fair was held from 16-18 Aug 2012.  Organized by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and held the the Hong Kong Convention Centre, this tea fair was also held in conjunction with the Hong Kong Food Fair 2012.

The convention centre is located on Hong Kong island.  Getting there is easy.  I was staying in the Kowloon side and I had 2 ways of getting there.  One was taking a subway to the Wan Chai stop and it takes another 10 minutes walk (sheltered) to the tea fair.  Another option, which I took was taking the Star Ferry from Kowloon to the convention centre.  The ferry trip took me about 15 minutes.  (see Pix 2)

I had registered myself as a buyer to the tea fair.  I remembered I had not much of a choice; it was either buyer or seller.  Registration is free and you could register at the fair itself.  

My Malaysian readers would be pleased to know that Malaysian tea is also represented at the tea fair (last pix).  I did find an opportunity to hop over to look at the food fair and I am pleased to see a strong Malaysian presence there as well. The famous Julie's biscuits and many popular 3-in-1 coffee dealers were there promoting their products.  

Yes, Taetea (we call it Dayi here) set up quite an elaborate booth at this tea fair.  They had 4 tea sampling tables, where you could sample almost all of the  current year's Dayi tea.  I did buy a unique 6 year old Dayi raw tea at the booth - more of that later.

The 2012 Hong Kong tea fair is very well organized.  You have forums, presentations, talks, conference and negotiation rooms that provided a very sleek and professional atmosphere to the event.  At the same time, there were also moments of casualness; like a tea competition on making the best cup of Hong Kong milk tea.  Very impressive.