Tea Tasting

Abbotsford held a wonderful event this weekend at the Reach Gallery. They had a tea tasting held with teas from around the world. Dan and I spent about an hour wandering around watching tea ceremonies from England and Japan and tasting teas from Iran, China and India. The Japanese tea ceremony lasted 45 minutes, so we didn't watch the whole thing. In fact, we lasted less than 2 minutes. It consisted of a whole lot of bowing and meditation. The highlight for us was being able to taste the teas. China had a Jasmine tea, which turned my stomach, although Dan liked it. Iran had a black tea, which tasted similar to a Red Rose type tea. But they did have a crystal of sugar with a string of saffron (the best in the world they boasted) that you could drop in your tea. It made the tea quite nice, until the crystal started to dissolve. Then the tea got sweeter and sweeter until it was almost unbearable. But by far the best tea was the chai tea from India. It was just the right flavour and blend of spices, which they mixed right in front of us. Plus, they also had a sample of their gourmet food. I can't remember the name, but its basically potato, onion and spinach deep fryed. Deliciouso!