Seattle - A Tea Town Part 2

After teaching classes for The Specialty Tea Institute, I attended the Northwest Tea Festival.  It is a two day event that is open to the public.  There are booths where you can buy new teawares and tea.  There are also two days filled with classes to learn about all things tea.  

I taught a Tea and Chocolate Pairing class using fine teas and pairing them with Guittard Chocolate bars with different percentages of cacao in each.  One of the pairings even included a single origin tea with a single origin chocolate-very special!  After my class, I had a book signing at the Perennial Tea Room booth.

In between teaching and book signings, I found time to look around.  It was fun to sit at the Shizuoka Tea booth with Pearl Dexter leading a tea tasting event. We had to taste two teas separately and then tell if they were the same or different.  It was challenging and fortunately, as the pressure was on, I answered correctly!

After a morning back at the tea festival, Sunday afternoon was devoted to a day of tasting wine. I went on a wine tour of boutique wineries. Yes, this tea gal likes wine too!  Tea and wine are more similar than you may think.  I use a lot of references to wine when I am teaching about tea so it was very apropos to have a day of tasting wine after so much tea tasting!

Our first stop was Covington Cellars for a lovely lunch and wine pairing. We walked into the room and all the candle light danced off the glass stemware for the tasting.  The wine barrel room looked magical just lit by candlelight and small strands of little white lights!

The lunch was delicious and I highly recommend if you are in the area going to one of their events. The Gorgonzola Chocolate Truffles with Savory Candied Almonds were amazing to say the least.  They say they will be packaging them for sale soon!

Our last stop on the tour was a small tasting room for Darby Wines.  I just loved the lighting they had along one side of the tasting room.  This would be a easy project for someone to do.  Just cut out holes in some stained wood and build a box deep enough to hold bottles.  The lighting behind it was just a fluorescent tube. 

It was a fun tour and tasting.  I did find some unique wines to purchase.  Stayed tuned next week as I take you to some tea rooms, Pike's Market, and Puget Sound.  Have I made you want to go visit Seattle yet?

Happy Sipping Tea and Wine, Lisa