Coffee and Tea Festival NYC
How many people are going to the Coffee and Tea Festival NYC in Brooklyn, NY this year. It is Saturday March 19 and Sunday March 20. There is a discount code if it still works DAMNFINE16 for $10 off regular admission tickets.
I sure wish I were! Thanks for sharing the code. I’ll tell my New York friends!
I’ll be there. You’re right about the mob scene there last year – made it difficult to really enjoy it. This year I sprung for VIP tickets, hoping I can get a jump on the masses! Really looking forward to it, anyway.
I didn’t buy the VIP tickets. Didn’t feel like getting up early enough to drive into Brooklyn for the early session.
Oh, I totally get that! I’m fortunate to live pretty close by. I have to say, though, if it’s super mobbed even during the VIP session, that’ll put me off going back again. I adore tea, but those crowds were way too much for me!
Any last minute attendees should know that they probably don’t sell tickets at the door, they didn’t last year anyway. So who is going?
Not sure how crowded the event ended up being this year (I left at noon, just as they were letting in general admission attendees), but I think getting VIP tickets was a good call, at least for me. No crowds, no one was running out of anything since they just started the festival, and I could leisurely walk around, go up to a booth, chat, taste teas, etc. in a stress-free way. I feel like they made the aisles wider (booths shallower) this year as last year it was pretty much a fire hazard, not being able to move at all at some points in the venue. I was sad to see that a few vendors I liked last year didn’t show up this year (My Zen Tea, and a vendor featuring a number of Chinese teas – just don’t remember the name of the company), but overall I had a great time. Lots of matcha this year compared to last, and more than a few non-tea- and non-coffee- related vendors (I guess you gotta pay the bills if those spaces are available!), but overall it was like night and day for me. I ended up splurging a bit, getting six different teas, as well as some new gear, plus the goodie bag had lots of snacks and more tea! I left very satisfied, and with way too many bags of stuff.
I got there around 12:30 and it was mobbed. But I still got at the booths and I still bought way too much tea. It is too bad that the vendor you are speaking of who sold the puerh cakes didn’t attend.
I know – the guy was very approachable and informative. It must not have been worth it for them to come back. Now if only Lupicia would attend, but I guess they don’t need to. It would be a treat, though.
The companies I would love to see attend would include Lupica, Yunomi, Yunnan Sourcing, Mandala Tea, Crimson Lotus but none of those companies are likely to attend next year either. It would probably cost too much in overhead for many of those companies. Hotel room, long van rides to get all the tea here. They would have too much stock to take on an airplane. If you looked at Big Island Tea, they didn’t have much stock with them, just samples. They undoubtedly traveled with them by air the whole way and you can’t bring too much stock with you that way.
The festival was amazing! It was so interesting seeing new development in the industry. Did anyone have a chance to attend the seminars? How were they?
Went to the seminar on aged teas. They covered mostly puerh but also liu an anad liu bao. They gave out some small samples of the teas to taste. The oldest was a 1970 liu an tea but there wasn’t enough to really get a feel for it. Each sample was maybe an ounce. It was quite informative.
Wow – how cool! Do you know if there are writeups about it anywhere? Sounds so interesting.
I don’t think there is a write up about the seminar and I didn’t take notes. They didn’t tell me too much I didn’t already know. We did get to sample some very old teas but unfortunately the samples were very small. You didn’t get a real feel for the teas.
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