Attendees and vendors at a previous year\u2019s Victoria Tea Festival in Nootka Court (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cWe have a tea market, and most of the people that are there have a direct connection to the producers, so it\u2019s not just repackaged product from some people on the east coast,\u201d Nyberg says. \u201cThese are people that are actually intimately and directly connected to the farmers who are producing the product.\u201d<\/p>\n
The festival will feature a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, as well as a demonstration on how to press tea cakes. Another feature of the show is a rare and antique teaware gallery, where some fascinating tea artefacts will be on display, such as a teapot recovered from a shipwreck 400 years ago. Patrons will also witness the intricacies of competitive gongfu<\/i> tea making. Nyberg says that this method of making tea is a skilled art form with many layers of characteristics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI think most people would agree that it\u2019s a large amount of tea in a very tiny vessel,\u201d he says. \u201cYou do a very fast infusion, and it\u2019s multi-layered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nyberg says the judges are not just looking for flavour and technique, but also culturally significant practices like the way the tea makers move, and the quality of qi<\/i> that they infuse into the tea. Tea is much more than the idea of putting a tea bag in hot water and drinking whatever comes out after four minutes, as in English tea culture, says Nyberg.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThere are purveyors and teas that will change your entire concept of what tea is, and you get to meet people with decades of experience,\u201d he says. \u201cThese aren\u2019t just vendors. When you go to a festival, normally, you\u2019re getting drinks or food, it\u2019s a very two-dimensional exchange. This is a knowledge exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is also a tea symposium featuring guest speakers. Patrons will learn from experts on Japanese tea traditions, rooibos processing, the art of kintsugi<\/i>, growing your own tea, and more. According to Nyberg, the show is more than just tea, it\u2019s a learning experience, where a viewer is immersed in culture and education.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cYou\u2019re coming here because you\u2019re going to come away with something deeper than just a new tea,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re going to come away with a perspective on making tea that may have changed or shifted. You\u2019re going to come away from this having learned a lot, and getting really excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Victoria Tea Festival
\n11 am to 5 pm Saturday, October 4
\n$15-$25 suggested donation; bring your own tea cup
\nNootka Court, 633 Courtney Street
\nvicteafestrevival.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Returning for its 10th anniversary, the Victoria Tea Festival, presented by the International Tea Appreciation Society, is the place to be if you drink tea, but also if you\u2019re interested in the history of tea within different cultures. In addition to the farmer\u2019s-market-style affair, where you bring your own cup and taste dozens of teas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27248,"comment_status":"closed","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":[7,238,339],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-life-sports","category-october-1-2025"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27247","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=27247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27249,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27247\/revisions\/27249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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