Polite and pretentious come together at second annual Northwest Tea Festival

Known by non-natives as the coffee city, Seattle celebrated its more accurately classified beverage culture this weekend with the second annual Northwest Tea Festival.

Sponsored by the Puget Sound Tea Association, this year’s festival drew 12 vendors and over 1,000 guests.

The two-day festival was filled with tea tasting, presentations by members of the international tea community as well as some notable workshop moments. In Saturday’s etiquette workshop, Bernadette Petrotta of the Polite Society School tutored the unrefined masses on the difference between high and low tea as well as offering suggestions on proper ways to hold flatware.

“You want people to not notice you are eating,” Petrotta said, in explaining tea and dinner party dining traditions.

Though etiquette traditions may be anachronistic, tea culture is not. Seattle’s tea community has become more prolific largely due to discoveries related to its health benefits as well as its cultural reputation as a social drink. Traditional tea shops like the Perennial Tea Room and Remedy Teas offer both traditional and modern tea experiences to suit all audiences.

“Tea is a healthy alternative to coffee. I like it because it is more of a social drink,” said Tania Stearns, Seattle University junior photography major. Stearns works at the Kuan Yin Teahouse in Wallingford, one of the vendors represented at the festival.

“When I first started getting into tea 15 years ago, there were only three or four places that were tea-specific in Seattle,” said Michael Coffey, president of Tea Geek, a company specializing in tea education.

The ironically named Coffey was head of the festival planning committee in its maiden year but took a less administrative role this year. As an educator, Coffey’s efforts at this year’s festival focused on dispelling some tea myths and spreading his “socially unacceptable” knowledge on the subject. He explained that many of the concerns people have about tea aren’t backed up by data.

“There’s some concern about the relationship between ADHD and caffeine. Americans actually consume less caffeine than many other countries with lower rates of ADHD,” Coffey said, “Another tea myth is that you can decaffeinate it with the ‘30-second steep.’”
The “30-second steep” is pouring hot water onto tea leaves or a tea bag and discarding of the water after 30 seconds, followed by pouring new water over the tea and waiting the suggested steeping time. According to Coffey, this will not in fact remove caffeine but will significantly decrease the antioxidants in the tea.

“Nineteen years ago, three teashops opened within six months of each other,” said Julee Rosanoff, one of the festival’s organizers. “That said something about what we were ready to do.”

Rosanoff sees the festival’s high attendance this year as the community’s desire to learn more about tea and take part in it as a social tradition. She hopes next year’s festival will breech 2,000 attendees but is satisfied with this year’s turnout.

Despite its leafy focus, no animosity toward coffee—Seattle’s cultural opus—was displayed in the festival.