The San Francisco International Tea Festival brings the world of artisan teas and tea culture to the Bay Area. Experience the elegance of a traditional Chinese Gongfu Ceremony and a Chanoyu, Japanese Tea Ceremony with visiting tea master Masahiro Takada. Attend classes by tea experts while you sip your way around the world. Vendors will offer samples of whole-leaf single estate teas from most of the countries of origin, exotic chai blends and some of the finest new flavored blends and ready-to-drink infusions. Several writers about tea will be participating in the festival events, including Norwood Pratt, Roy Fong, Frank H. Murphy and Babette Donaldson.

At the festival enjoy a preview of the film:
The Meaning Of Tea

Meet the Authors of the Companion Book:

Please join author and editor Phil Cousineau, filmmaker Scott Chamberlin Hoyt, and world-renowned tea authority Norwood Pratt for an authors' reception for The Meaning of Tea: A Tea-Inspired Journey at Book Passage in the Ferry Building at 1:00 p.m.

Phil Cousineau edited and compiled The Meaning of Tea book from more than 50 of his and Scott Hoyt's interviews with tea pickers and plantation owners, street sellers, traders and teapot makers and tea scholars spanning eight countries. It is a celebration of the history, rituals, spirituality and simple pure enjoyment of tea.

"America's tea sage," Norwood Pratt, who is featured in The Meaning of Tea book and film, is possibly the world's most widely read authority on tea. His award-winning books are James Norwood Pratt's New Tea Lover's Treasury and James Norwood Pratt's Tea Dictionary.

Meet the authors, taste some world-class tea, and experience the deeper meaning of tea! This reception is part of the first annual San Francisco International Tea Festival. Scott Hoyt will be showing clips from his award winning film, also called The Meaning of Tea, at 3:30 pm on the Ferry Building's Second Floor.