City by the Bay

 The city by the bay has been mentioned in songs and reminds people that San Francisco is a city that rocks (not an earthquake reference, but it does fit), and that people should wear a flower in their hair.

It is certainly true that the city of San Francisco never stops. Everyone and everything seems to be in a constant state of motion. However, that being said, some areas exist with an energized calm, such as last weeks San Francisco International Tea Festival. 

The festival consisted of exhibitors, workshops, and tea tasting sessions. As I mentioned in a previous blog, the exhibitors, people from Glenburn Tea Estate tea tasting, and volunteers were all extremely phenomenal people. Everyone who had a hand in this event is to be congratulated for a job well done.

In all, there were eight tea tasting sessions that all sounded fabulous. Due to time constraints we were only able to go to one tea tasting session. We would have loved to attended other tastings with Sky Tea, Jade Mountain Teas, and Yunnan Teas.

The seminars also looked very interesting. The three that particularly caught our attention were History of Tea in the U.S., Great Teas of Japan, and The Full Cycle of Gung Fu Tea. Again, any of the seminars would have been great to attend, as you can always learn something new, even if you already know a lot about the subject matter.

In all, we sampled eight teas during the tea tasting session and another 20 teas from the vendors. We also enjoyed three samples of chocolate and 3 or 4 different kinds of ginger ale produced by Bruce
Cost Gingerale, some of which contained tea. Very tasty, indeed.

San Francisco is the perfect place for a tea festival. Think about it, San Francisco has always been the gateway to the west. There are many people that have come from literally all over the world to this city and made it their home. Look at a map of San Francisco and you will find Little Italy, Chinatown, and Japan town. All of these groups of people helped California become the beautiful state that it is today.

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Darjeeling in San Francisco

Earlier this week we were in San Francisco, attending the 2^nd Annual San Francisco International Tea Festival. There were many wonderful exhibitors with their wares at this festival. It took us a two hours to check out the exhibits. Unfortunately, there were items downstairs that we never got to see as we ran out of time. However, we felt very fortunate to have met so many wonderful people at this event.

We had signed up for a Darjeeling tea tasting and were not only very eager to taste these teas, but also to meet with the Glenburn Tea Estate people themselves, and to learn more about the Glenburn Darjeeling teas. Sidhant Prakash was one of the two speakers for this tasting. Both speakers were very knowledgeable and a joy to talk too.

Before we started tasting eight teas, we were given a little background information that was fun to absorb. First of all it takes 1,000 leaves to make a pound of ready to steep tea. Sixty percent of all of the work is done by hand, of which all of their tea is handpicked. When it comes to picking tea by hand, it is not as easy as it looks. Tea requires an exact plucking technique. The plucker wants of course to only get the first two leaves and a bud, not the stem. 

Tea is effected by soil and climate. Tea from the Glenburn estate is grown on the western slopes of the Darjeeling mountains between 1,000 and 5,000 feet.

One tidbit of knowledge that I learned was that teas harvested during Monsoon season (July-September) have a much mellower taste due to the over abundance of water. When the plant gets less water, it stresses out a bit and has a stronger tea taste. This occurs during the harvest; March to June and October thru November.

The winter months are used to prune the tea plants and perform many other tasks that cannot be done during the harvest season, one of which will be working on an irrigation system.

Of the eight teas that we tasted with Glen burn Tea Estates, there were three that really stood out for us. First, was a lovely white tea called Moonshine, which had a lovely citrusy taste, a light liquor, and finished well on the tongue. It was very tasty. This tea is harvested in March at the beginning of the tea season. Our second favorite tea was a white tea, Silver Needle. Silver Needle is harvested during the Monsoon season and therefore has a much more mellow taste. I found the aroma to be wonderfully intoxicating. The tea liquor had a lovely light appearance and finish on the tongue was smooth and buttery. The other tea which we both favored was the Autumn Oolong, which is harvested in November. The Autumn Oolong had a wonderful aroma and a coloury liquor. It had a wonderful crisp sensation in the mouth and left a nice lingering taste. 

It was sad to leave the San Francisco International Tea Festival and the Bay Area, but hopefully we will return sooner rather than later. There is always joy in hoping of a return trip. I'm already planning what we would do the next time we visit. Of course, tea is always in the plan. How could it not be?

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