Sean the Tea Guy

Back in March I attended the World Tea Expo (WTE), held in Las Vegas, Nevada, for the second time and I had an amazing time. The people I worked with are just lovely, adapting to everything thrown their way during a busy Expo, and they are half the reason I enjoy going. Tea people are just cool.

I went in 2024, when I worked at The Cultured Cup, as a coordinator for my boss’ Tea 101 class. My role was to make sure all the teas were ready and all digital and physical presentation materials were available with backups. By the time the class began, there were 150 people seated. Preparing 12 teas for 150 people is a big task involving a lot of math and coordination, but it went so well that they asked him back this year. Tea education seems to be needed a lot more than I realized, so that’s a big deal, but we’ll circle back to that.

The remainder of my time there was spent making and delivering tea to various seminars that occurred during the four days of the conference. I can’t think of a time where I worked such long and hard hours and still felt energized by the end of each day. Everyone was happy to be there and working, and we got to talk to a lot of professionals in the tea industry as we worked. Great people, unique teas, and interesting takes on the status of the industry: my happy place trifecta.

If you think Las Vegas sounds like a strange location choice for a Tea Expo and Convention, I would agree with you. However, it does house the second largest convention center in the US, which means there’s plenty of room to house both the tea expo itself and the bar and restaurant expo that shares a space. It also means, as a back end worker, I get to average 11,000 steps a day carting tea to and from the seminars. That probably doesn’t sounds great, but I assure you it’s fantastic.

This year The Cultured Cup invited me to help them at the expo again, and I was given the opportunity to run my own blind-tasting game for a meet and greet. I also ended up being asked to do a one-hour seminar on a topic of my choosing, which I was thrilled about.

The primer class held at the beginning of the expo explains the six types of tea for the attendees to start with a good foundation of what tea is, where it comes from, and how they differ from each other. Meanwhile, those of us in the back are busy prepping teapots, teabags, and display boats to make and send a total of twelve teas for 150 people, which brings us to a grand total of 218 pots of tea by the end of the class. Long and hard work that wouldn’t be possible without the cooperation of some wonderful people. The photo below can be credited to one of those wonderful people, Loretta Hudelot.

Later that evening, a meet and greet was held for the attendees, including raffle games, some delicious iced tea, and my blind tasting game. Four unique brews that players were asked to taste and guess what type of tea it was based on what they learned in the Tea 101 class. I was told to make it difficult, so I also had them guess what province in China the teas were from, which led to some cool conversations about innovation in tea. A lot of people gravitated to the Crassicolumna (a cousin of the tea plant) since it tastes like a well-made black tea but isn’t a true tea and also has no caffeine. The four teas I used were:
– Aged White Shoumei 2017
– Jade Dew (Steamed Chinese Green Tea)
– Dan Cong Black Tea
– Crassicolumna Black Tisane

On Tuesday I led a session on why tea tastings are crucial for tea businesses. I had about 50 people in the class and it was a lot of fun. I got a lot of questions about how to answer customers and how to mitigate the costs of providing free tastings, but I also had people answering each other’s questions, which was my hope. I have seven years of experience to to draw from to teach this class, but my main goal was to get owners to brainstorm with each other on how best to implement tastings in-store. Yes, retail is competitive, but I get the sense that the tea industry has the opportunity to be more relaxed on that since there is only so much one shop can do on it’s own. I get the distinct impression that if tea shops spent more time on education for staff and customers, they would find not just better sales, but a better working environment.

After teaching my class, I spent time working at the Tea Bar on the expo floor, which is such a fast paced and fun environment. Headed up by one cool-headed Nick Parsons, the Tea Bar offered free samples of featured teas from different vendors on the show floor.

The tea bar is so much fun for me, though I’ll admit my first year it was overwhelming. I spent most of my time running teapots back and forth, making sure my co-workers had bottomless tea to serve. Throughout the time there were guest presenters who showcased some tea cocktails and there was also an incubator with tea business consultants. The second day they showcased the winners of the Global Tea Championship. Sadly, I missed the Wednesday afternoon since my flight was that day, which is an error I will not be making again next year!

As I’ve mentioned throughout this post, the people at the Expo are what make it such an amazing experience. The volunteers I met and worked with there were hard-working, very friendly, and all really like tea. So, big thanks to all of them for the cultivating an environment that makes me want to come back every year. Also, a big thanks to my mentors and previous employers at The Cultured Cup for my education and background in tea and for bringing me to the Expo in the first place. As someone who is not directly involved in the tea industry anymore, events like this keep me scheming about how to stay in the tea world to continue sharing cups of this wonderful beverage with wonderful people.

As mentioned before, I had to fly back a little earlier than I would have liked, but that Wednesday morning I made the most of the time I had left and made sure to visit friends at booths on the floor and tried some unique new places out. At one place there were two lovely individuals who were gung fu steeping some special Chinese teas at their table. A friend of mine helped to translate what we were looking for as we sipped many cups of calming tea. I ended up with some wonderful Mi Lan Xiang (Honey Orchid) Dan Cong Ooolong and some earthy and sweet Shou Pu’er. It was such a good way to close our time out.

On the flight back home, I pondered the whirlwind that was the Expo. I thought about how so many people wanted to know more about tea and how limited the options are for people in North America to learn. I thought about how to use what I know to further the knowledge of tea available and to share it with people who aren’t sure where to start. I’m still thinking a lot of that through, but for now I know I can start with my writings here, perhaps beginning with a set of articles on Tea 101.

Speaking of things to drink, I did walk away with a few teas. I am excited to try them all and share my thoughts as I experiment with them. One benefit of working at a tea conference is that you get to see some unique teas and, between what was left over and what I scored in the expo hall, I will have quite a bit to write about. Let me know if there’s something you want to know and I’ll be happy to write about it. Until then, I’ve got some pu’er calling my name upstairs.

Happy Steeping!