World Tea Expo 2014 - Day 1

World Tea Expo 2014 – Day 1 Recap

The World Tea Expo was moved from Las Vegas to Long Beach, California this year.

I’ve never been to this area of the country, and it holds a great deal of interest for me to explore—both in culinary and cultural terms.

I’m pretty jazzed to have the chance to be out here for a week.

However, my first few days will be at the World Tea Expo, doing tea things and promoting Teaity to those who haven’t heard of it yet.
While I still feel a bit uncomfortable interjecting Teaity into conversations, I’ve learned it’s a necessity—and I kinda gotta get over it.

Breakfast at Blackbird Cafe

Day 1 started with a great breakfast on my way to the Expo at a place called Blackbird Cafe.

Based on some Yelp reviews, I determined my best option would be the Dos Caballeros,
which is essentially a double dose of Eggs Benedict with a Mexican flair—and it rocked my socks.

I think it was the best sunny-side-up I’ve ever eaten!
If you’re in the LA/Long Beach area for breakfast or brunch, this is where you want to be.

Delicious!

Arriving at the Expo

Upon arriving at the expo, I collected my badge and set out to gather my blogger Press credentials.
This year, they added a little “heart” symbol to signify we’re permitted to take photos 📷 —an improvement over the past two years of a blanket “no photos” policy.

I ran into Jen Piccotti of An International Tea Moment
and Dan Bolton of The Daily Tea, who recently had a near-death experience that sounded straight out of a Hollywood movie. 😲

After that, I bumped into Newman Johnston from Teas Etc and chatted a bit about Teaity and our upcoming plans.

Exploring the Show Floor

Soon after, I met up with Nicole Schwartz—owner of The Devotea USA
and proud owner of the @amazonv Twitter handle.

We talked about a bunch of things, but had fun as the doors opened to the show floor and we started exploring.
At the Den’s Tea booth, we snapped opposing photos of each other with their mascot.

I also got distracted by some shiny packaging options for a feature I’ve been thinking about adding to Teaity.

New Discoveries & Closing Thoughts

Sadly, my iPhone ran low on battery 😩, so I was unable to capture more moments from the day.
But I made many new friends, rediscovered some great brands,
and opened my mind to a couple of new possibilities, including:

• Hunan Dark Tea (similar to or the same as a Hei Cha I had at TeaSource in Minneapolis a few years ago)
• An interesting hand-rolled tea from Malawi by Satemwa

Excited to see what Day 2 brings! ☕✨