The Spirit of Tea Tour by Spirit Tea & Marco
Tea Geeks, heads up!
Coffee lovers seem to get special events every week. Festivals, tastings, competitions… Now we have a tea event especially devoted to the tea geek within: Spirit Tea and Marco’s upcoming series of events across the Nation, The Spirit of Tea Tour.
Chicago-based Spirit Tea is teaming up with the beverage tech company Marco and traveling West through Los Angeles, Denver, Portland, and Seattle to engage the community with an educational tea workshop and pose a dare with a Matcha Latte Art Throwdown.
The first part of the Spirit of Tea Tour will be a hands-on seminar diving into how to accurately dial-in your tea brewing skills, led by Spirit Tea co-founders Taylor Cowan and Jordan Scherer. Scherer tells me that the goal was to make this interactive. “We are lucky that tea is an industry that involves all of the senses. When we talk about tea brewing from a chemical perspective it's important attendees experience these elements viscerally, so it made sense to bring this material right to their doorstep.”
Spirit Tea, a Friend of World of Tea, has extensive experience training and curating tea programs, whether it be for their local coffee shops or for Michelin-rated restaurant Alinea in Chicago. Utilizing their exceptional selection of seasonal teas and the volumetric, variable temperature controlled Marco Mix water boiler, they’ll be demonstrating and discussing:
Chemistry of the Tea Leaf: Primary chemical compounds of the tea leaf and their role in flavor.
How to Dial-In Tea: How to unlock tastes from your tea.
Barista Best Practices: Making your tea workflow intentional and presentable.
Seasonal Teas & Their Importance: A tasting highlighting a broad range of terrors and varieties.
The educational segment will be followed up by a matcha latte art throwdown, in a traditional bracket-style barista format. Yeah coffee, we can hang too.
The events will be hosted by local coffee shops in their respective cities. Although it might seem counter-intuitive to host a tea seminar and competition in a coffee shop, Scherer notes, “Coffee shops are currently where an elevated discussion around proper extraction is already taking place. This material is high level and we are seeking allies to help create more enthusiasm around tea. The matcha element engages the community in a monthly ritual that will drive out more attendance through friendly competition. Matcha is very sensitive to water temperature so it's an easy way to reinforce the principles of the workshop in a competitive environment.”
These events are totally free and open to the public! No registration is necessary. I’ll be at the workshop in Los Angeles, and will be bringing a World of Tea competitor to the Matcha Latte Throwdown, so I hope to see you there! Find your city below to attend:
LOS ANGELES
Steelhead Coffee
1208 E. Wardlow Rd
Long Beach, CA 90807
9/28 @ 1:00pm: Tea Dialing-In Workshop
Cafe Dulce
777 S Alameda St. #150
Los Angeles, CA 90021
9/28 @ 6:45pm: Matcha Latte Throwdown
DENVER
Sweet Bloom Coffee Roasters
1619 Reed St
Lakewood, CO 80214
10/11 @ 1:00pm: Tea Dialing-In Workshop
Huckleberry Coffee
4301 N Pecos St
Denver, CO 80211
10/12 @ 6:30pm: Matcha Latte Throwdown
PORTLAND
Coava Coffee
1015 SE Main St.
Portland, OR 97214
11/7 @ 1:00pm: Tea Dialing-In Workshop
Upper Left Coffee
1204 SE Clay St
Portland, OR 97214
11/8 @ 6:45pm: Matcha Latte Throwdown
SEATTLE
Visions Espresso
2737 1st Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98134
11/9 @ 1:00pm: Tea Dialing-In Workshop
11/9 @ 6:45pm: Matcha Latte Throwdown
