October 11, 2013

We made our way over to the Forum Area located in Hall M. Wingchi was introducing the 2013 International Black Tea Forum titled "Chance & Crisis - Future and Innovation of Black Tea" which was scheduled to begin at 9:30 am. Wingchi spoke after his introduction, and then introduced the four international guest speakers. He also acted as the moderator in a panel discussion with the guest speakers. The guest speakers were;

-Mr. Satrajit Banerjee, Deputy Director of Tea Promotion - Tea Board of India

-Professor Qiujin Liu, Managing Director - Research Institute of Tea Science SouthWest University, Beibie, Chongqing, China

-Mr. Chen Mingzhi, General Manager of Bu Er Xin Tea Company, Taiwan

-Our own Mr. Darrell Corti, President of Corti Brothers, Inc. Sacramento, California

Mr. Chen Mingzhi, General Manager of Bu Er Xin Tea Company, Taiwan .

Darrell's Speech on black tea in the U.S.

Professor Liu's Speech.

With the 2 - 1/2 hour 2013 International Black Tea Forum now over it was time for a lunch break. We walked through the Tea Fair and then the Buddhist Fair to the escalators and made our way back to the hotel. We met some of the forum participants in the main lobby banquet area to take in the lunch buffet.

I made a plate of Sushi, braised pork, Scallop w/roe, Goose liver canape, fried tofu strips in shoyu, mackerel w/ roe, pickled ginger, Japanese pickled cucumbers, pork bun, quail egg canape, local fried fish, local green salad, steamed rice, Anchor Chinese rice beer. For dessert; more pickled ginger, dragon fruit, jujubes, and Chinese ice cream. Two of the four ice creams had a very odd savory character to them. Definitely not for western eaters I would say.

After lunch, it was back to the Tea Fair to see more of the exhibitors. Calligraphy is an old form of communication as well as an art form in China, which also has deep roots with tea. There was a good representation of drawings at the Fair and even a few demonstrations.

Darrell wanted to sit in on the next Forum event, which began at 3:30 pm. The president of Marukyu Koyamaen Co. Ltd. was speaking about tea. The Marukyu Koyamaen Co. Ltd. is one of the oldest and most noted tea companies in Japan, with roots of its history dating back to the Genroku period (1688-1704).

The speech was made in Japanese, and translated into Chinese by an interpreter on stage. Unfortunately, the radio translator system used during the Black Tea Forum was not available for this speech, so it was not available in English. We still sat in a while to look at the photos of the Power Point presentation. Our next stop was to see the The Marukyu Koyamaen Co. Ltd. booth. We wanted to see if we could slip in to taste some of their teas, but the booth was very busy. We chatted with a few of the staff, who Wingchi and Darrell knew. Two young monks became very captivated with one of the Marukyu Koyamaen Co. Ltd. dressed in a traditional obi. They couldn't resist a photo op.

We walked the Fair until closing at 5 pm then went back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner. We met at the hotel lobby entrance and waited for our ride to dinner. We were picked up by a van and driven to the western part of Xiamen Island, which is the big city part of Xiamen with it's tall buildings, business and store fronts galore. We arrived at Tshuyou Restaurant, which specializes in local seafood and specialties.

The only possible complaint about dinner was that there were too many dishes set on the spinning table for us to eat, but we really didn't complain. Dinner was delicious. The crispy fried local rock fish (prepared from the beautiful orange spotted fish pictured in the tank above) was especially delicious. I couldn't get enough. Darrell brought a 2001 López de Heredia Rioja Reserva Viña Tondonia, which paired so well with the meal. Our next stop was to a tea shop only a few blocks away, so we walked. Street vendors were out in force selling everything from street food and produce to kitchen gadgets and utensils.

We arrived at the Xiamen YongZhiQuan Tea Co., Ltd. The tea shop specializes in Pu-erh tea. Pu-erh is tea from Yunnan Province in the southwest of China. Unlike other teas which are harvested from pruned hedges , Pu-erh is harvested from tea trees. It is a tea that is most often aged for years and even decades like fine wine to achieve wonderful flavor. Pu-erh is usually pressed into disc shaped cakes, but can also be found is many other shapes, as well as loose leaf. We were very impressed the minute we entered the shop by the shelves which were loaded with hundreds of Pu-erh cakes and the bamboo wrapped "tungs" which hold seven stacked cakes each. We were treated to a good number of pu-erh teas. Each tea infused a number of times. This is the Chinese way of enjoying tea. Tea is a good reason for the Chinese to meet and have good conversation aside from the dining table.

Stomachs quite content from the settling nature of good pu-erh tea, it was time to make the drive back to our hotel to turn in for the night.

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