California Dreamin’ – Part 7 – Important Planning for World Tea

Hopefully, by now, you are aware of the new World Tea Awards dinner set to take place May 30 aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California (See Part 6).  Nominations are now open. We need your help and call upon the entire tea community to suggest nominees for the most impressive recognition event of the year… And, it is also time to finalize your plans for attending World Tea Expo. My last posting for this California Dreamin’ blog series will appear next month, in May.  I hope you have been enjoying it.  I will see if I can come up with some other things to blog about after all of the excitement and move to Long Beach has passed.  Next month I will sum up last minute details and things to focus on while at the show, things to do in Long Beach, and so on. For now, you should concentrate on booking your hotel room and registering to attend World Tea Expo before the early bird pricing cutoff date of April 17.  And, don’t forget to add my Tea Room Survival class–shameless plug- (May 30, 11 am) and the World Tea Awards Dinner (May 30, 7 pm) to your registration. If you are looking for other things happening at World Tea Expo, have a look at Special Events and Affiliate Events as well.  Special Events include things like the networking reception, Tea Championship tasting circles, tea ceremonies and much more.  Affiliate Events include meet-ups of several different groups.  I will be leading a “Tea Room Mixer” to be held at 2 pm on May 29 (RSVP required – details here: Affiliate Events). World Tea Awards is a micro-event production of World Tea Expo and emceed by founder and director, George Jage, and me.  It will be a fun filled, Oscars-style award ceremony culminating with the presentation of the Cha Jing Lifetime Achievement Award to Devan Shah. I am very excited to be a part of this because there are so many people who collectively make our industry sing and this is our chance to come together to honor each other and recognize people nominated by the tea community. New Product award winners will be recognized along with several distinctive category winners.  Nominations are being accepted in the following categories:

Best Tea Publication - Best Social Media Reach - Best Tea Blog - Best Tea Educator Best Tea Book - Best Tea Room Menu - Best Tea Room Website - Best Tea Spirit Best Tea Short / Commercial (NEW) - Best Tea Retailer Website

Nominations take place now through April 24 and may be entered through this direct link to the nomination survey. Finalists will then be announced, and voting will follow.

NOW, WE NEED YOUR HELP! And, you cannot be afraid to toot your own horn! During the nominations process, we need you to reach out to your own audience via email, social media, or whatever means you communicate with your followers and direct them to the nomination survey linked above. Ask people to nominate you. You may also nominate yourself. The more nominations you receive from others, the better chance of making it to the final voting stage.

Anyone may enter nominations, multiple times, to suggest or nominate different names for any category. For example, Best Tea Book, perhaps there are several you feel are deserving of a nomination. Enter the nomination survey as many times as you wish to make a new nomination.  Remember, this is the nomination stage, voting will take place later. Now, purely for the fun of blogging and a little random merriment, I must share with you a little something that happened to me last week. ~ On my way to a meeting, I got stuck driving behind a landscape truck and trailer….on a one lane road! I had planned to arrive early for the meeting.  While driving behind the truck and impatiently counting the minutes, I thought…well, maybe I will be on-time rather than early. The longer the delay, I started thinking/worrying… “Oh sugar, I am going to be late.”  Then came a stop light and I hoped the truck would turn in the opposite direction. (We’ve all been there, right?!) – Pulling up closer to the trailer, what did I see? Their license plate began with TEA! Now, imagine me scrambling to take a picture from my cell phone before they turned! This is a crummy photo, but check it out – TEA …. Trail [er]. What does this all mean, you ask? Well, it was like a Kermit moment…….to chill out, don’t worry, and just “be more tea.”  Have you seen that new Lipton commercial with The Muppets? It first aired during the recent Oscars on television and I have tripped over it a few times since. I just love the message to chillax, to turn any stressful situation around by just taking time out with tea. I am sure you agree. Please feel free to contact me directly, or comment here if you have something positive to share or a question I may help to answer. If you have any specific questions you would like to see addressed in the May posting, please let me know.   Until next time, I remain California Dreamin’… Gail Gastelu, The Tea House Times