2nd Annual San Francisco International Tea Festival

Afternoon Tea Across America members meet up!
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

Mr. Fong and Mr. Pratt opening the
2012 Festival.  Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

My friend and I went to the The San Francisco International Tea Festival at the Ferry Building Marketplace last Sunday.  A big highlight for me was meeting up with some of the members of the Afternoon Tea Across America e-mail group on Yahoo (see photo at left)!  We had a good time, and will probably go again next year.  The festival, open to tea lovers outside the professional tea trade, involved 16 tea vendors and various experts who offered samples of their tea and tea products, gave lectures and led tea tastings.  There were about 1,000 attendees, who received a small bag of promotional handouts, a few samples of tea, and an official tasting cup, at the festival entrance.

New costume idea (someday!): traditional costume from Calabria, Southern Italy.

I went to the Italian American Heritage Foundation's Italian Family Festa last weekend! I had been wanting to attend for years but finally made it, and it was a lot of fun. While a lot of it was vendors selling cheesy Italian slogan T-shirts, there was a cool booth with some ladies making Italian bobbin lace, and a bulletin board with color postcards of traditional Italian folk costumes. I have been wanting to make Italian folk costume for a while but now I have some pictures to work with!