PHILADELPHIA, Penn.
Voyagers sipped their way from Sri Lanka to China, India, Kenya, Japan and Taiwan Thursday tasting some of the best tea of their lives and learning the culture and tea production characteristics of the greatest tea lands on earth.
Participants in the World Origin Tasting Tour landed safely after eight intense hours of focused tastings following briefings by representatives of each country.
"You can't live long enough to taste all the teas in the world, but this is a start," says Emily Murphy, president of Emily's Tea in Fairfax Station, Va. "This is a wonderful assault on the senses," added Murphy, who says the program provided her with valuable material to share with customers.
Veteran John Smith, Vice President at H.P. Thompson, a 100-year-old tea importer in Mendham, N.J. found it "defitely beneficial. I like to hear how others protray the specialty industry. I may have a different take on some of these regions but it is great institutional knowledge."
Toni Glass from Johannesburg, South Africa, like the fact presentations were by representatives of the origin countries. "I found it very interesting. I got a quick feel for each place and felt I could connect with each region," says Glass, who founded The Toni Glass Collection,