{"id":13331,"date":"2017-02-01T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T17:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=13331"},"modified":"2017-01-30T10:30:13","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T18:30:13","slug":"victoria-tea-fest-rises-from-the-dead-to-bring-tea-to-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/02\/01\/victoria-tea-fest-rises-from-the-dead-to-bring-tea-to-town\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Tea Fest rises from the dead to bring tea to town"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Victoria Tea Festival ran for several successful years before it ended in 2013. But local tea lovers have cause to rejoice: The International Tea Appreciation Society has decided to put on the Victoria Tea Festival Revival to continue the legacy of the previous festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year we\u2019re doing a tea market and symposium at Nootka Court,\u201d says event co-organizer Ryan Moen. \u201cWe\u2019ll be doing kind of an open-air market style, like you\u2019d see at a farmer\u2019s market, and we\u2019re expecting about 10 to 15 different vendors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moen and co-organizer and fellow tea enthusiast Jared Nyberg have decided to put the revival festival in a less formal light and really open it up for everyone to enjoy. Moen claims that tea is a fantastic way to bring people together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, nobody hates tea. People might not like tea, people might have different preferences, whether it\u2019s mint or black or chai tea, but generally it\u2019s an easy medium to bring a large group of people together to celebrate,\u201d says Moen. \u201cThere is a lot of conversation around tea. It invokes so much personal notation. Some people only have tea by themselves; some people go through a whole ceremony, or think about their grandmother. Generally, it\u2019s a pretty happy experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
If you like talking about tea, looking at tea, and drinking tea, you\u2019ll be happy to hear the Victoria Tea Fest is back (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The festival will have many local vendors, all of whom are passionate about their product. The organizers have been careful to keep the festival focused on the tea and ensure that only products that contribute positively to the culture will be featured.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve stayed away from is inviting anybody with what we call \u2018candy tea,\u2019\u201d says Moen, \u201cwhere people start adding sugars, and sort of navigate away from the tea. If they start adding sweeteners specifically to change the taste, that\u2019s where we draw the line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Historically, Moen claims, tea may have been a \u201ctwo brand in the supermarket\u201d product, but in recent years, especially locally, it has blossomed into a thriving industry, with many participants.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Victoria, the popularity of tea is definitely growing,\u201d says Moen. \u201cI think people on the west coast have a bit more of a connoisseur lifestyle. People want to know more, and with tea you can offer that. You can offer where it\u2019s from, how it\u2019s produced, and really delve into the different types of textures and notes that each cup can have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with the market, patrons will also get to attend the tea symposium, where they can learn all about their favourite beverage. Topics range from tea sourcing and grading to tea ceremonies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main focus of the tea festival is the market to show what\u2019s available, but the other half is that no matter how big or small the festival gets, we are always using education as our backbone,\u201d says Moen. \u201cA thing we encourage is for people to just come and ask all the vendors questions. We try to make sure that the people we invite have a lot to say, and almost all of them know their tea very specifically. It isn\u2019t limited to the education experience in the symposium.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moen is very positive about the prospects of the upcoming festival, and he believes that it will be a success that could lead to many more in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main reason it was created was for the people of Victoria,\u201d he says. \u201cMy big hope is that they can pick it up and treat it the way they want to and not have to adhere to any specific medium that we offer, but just celebrate tea and take it and create their own festival.\u201d<\/p>\n

Victoria Tea Festival Revival
\nSaturday, February 4
\n$2 to $10 sliding scale
\nNootka Court,\u00a0633 Courtney Street
\nteavictoria.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Victoria Tea Festival ran for several successful years before it ended in 2013. But local tea lovers have cause to rejoice: The International Tea Appreciation Society has decided to put on the Victoria Tea Festival Revival to continue the legacy of the previous festival. \u201cThis year we\u2019re doing a tea market and symposium at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-february-1-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13331"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13334,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13331\/revisions\/13334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}