Hong Kong International Tea Fair 2016

The Hong Kong Tea Fair 2016 was held from 11-13 Aug 2016 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.  I was able to attend this tea fair and you can see some of the pictures I took while I was there.

This tea fair was also held in conjunction with the Hong Kong Food Expo while drew massive visitors to look at the new food offerings from all over the world.  Both the food and tea exhibitions were very well organized and professionally managed.  Exhibition booklets were of high quality and given to all trade visitors.  Free wifi  was available and there was even a booth where you can pack and mail home commercial samples instead of lugging the goods home.

The tea fair as seen in the pix was organized by country and by product.  Country booths like Japan, India and China were clustered together.  For the China booths, they were even sub-divided by regions like Anxi and Yunnan provinces.  Tea ware distributors were also grouped together for the convenience of trade visitors.  

I was surprised by the quality of the Anxi Dehua ceramics and I even bought some tea ware that was for sale there (pix 6-8).  I had the opportunity to converse with the Anxi tea dealers in their native ming-nan dialect and even had to opportunity to play 'interpreter' as there were several enquiries in English.  And…I was rewarded with invitations to stay in their tea farms and I hope to visit Anxi next year.  

The Japanese tea booths were very impressive.  These booths were well organized and even had a separate brochure detailing the various products and offerings of the Japanese tea dealers.  There was even tables set up for visitors to learn more and try their hand in brewing Japanese tea.  Did you notice the Matcha 'coke' in the pic?

The tea fair also include presentations and talks by the tea dealers to present their tea to the trade visitors.  The Australian representatives were showcasing their tea products while I was there (pix 9).

A Hong Kong milk tea (kam-cha) brewing competition was also held at the tea fair, where the Hong Kong locals  try to compete with each other (these guys looked real serious) brewing the popular Hong Kong milk tea. The last pix shows the tea being prepared.  Notice the 'tea sock' used to brew the tea.

I felt this tea fair was professionally done and I enjoyed my visit…nuff said!