We attended our first tea festival ever in Seattle at the Northwest Tea Festival 2019. It took some time for us to reach the decision whether to attend the festival or not, and by the time we came to the decision sometimes in mid July and were ready to filled out the application, we were informed that all the booths were taken (It’s the biggest tea festival in the west coast, what were we thinking?!). From there, it was just waiting and hoping a spot would be open soon. In the second week of August, we received a call from Doug, who is one of the organizers of the tea festival, informing us that a spot has just opened, and he asked three time whether we were certain about attending considering there were only 5 weeks left for preparation at that point. From there, the rest went into Serene Tea’s history. We couldn’t be more grateful to such wonderful opportunity that allowed us to meet and be part of the tea community in Seattle and meet many other tea enthusiasts that flew in from other states.
Friday September 27th, setting up the booth and getting ready for the festival. We offered 10% to 20% off on our teawares, and the mini Kyusu teapot was one of the most popular teawares along with our teapets.
Our butterfly pea flower herbal tea series was also one of the most popular teas.
The aged white tea cake Shou Mei 2013 is one of the most popular and received a lot of praises, and the Mushroom Raw Pu Erh 2004 drew a lot of curiosity from tea lovers.
People were coming to our Gongfu Cha tasting station nonstop to taste the aged white tea Shou Mei 2013, aged white tea Shou Mei 2015, Mushroom Raw Pu Erh 2004 and the Phoenix Dan Cong Oolong Tea.
We had a blast on both Saturday and Sunday, but Saturday was particularly busy. So glad to see people's love and appreciation for teas, tea culture and tea community.
On Sunday morning before the door was open, we finally caught a five minutes gap to take a staff picture. Yiyi Liu and Luca Angerilli are not our regular staff, but have been with us since Serene Tea was founded. They have been marvelous at the festival. Both Serene Tea and people's experience at our booth wouldn't have been the same without them.
As the owner of Serene Tea, I couldn't be more thankful to Yiyi, Luca and our beloved tea community in Seattle. We are still a boutique online, but hopefully with your support, we will be able to thrive very soon and give back more to our wonderful community. We are also looking forward to the Northwest Tea Festival 2020, and hope to see you there by then!