By Samuel Huntington
Special to Westside Today
Lovers of tea united for a delightfully good time at the 10th annual Tea Lovers Festival held recently at the Fowler Museum in celebration of all things herbal.
Attendees signed up, lined up, ,and drank until their throats went dry as they sampled special types of tea from around the world.
It was truly an anniversary day as the first tea festival originated on February 14th, 2006 at The Center for Living Meditation in Santa Monica, and has since spread and grown exponentially ever since. The original idea for the party occurred when Kulov, the festival founder, was living in Europe and organized a tea party to entertain his nieces.
Some of the tea vendors on hand at the Fowler Museum included Hankook Tea (Korea), Den’s Tea (Japan), Blenburn Tea Direct (India) and Health Ade Kombucha which is made locally here in the United States. There was also a crafting table led by Sarita Gomez, who has been teaching tea party etiquette classes over the years; her table was covered with basic art supplies and traceable paper hearts to to help the artists form ideas and get started. The paint that she used was actually mixed from crushed tea leaves with herbal extracts and water.
There was also a lineup of performers at the event, for what good is a formal tea part y without a little entertainment?
The festivities kicked off with an abridged version of “Alice and the Wonderful Tea Party” presented by the cast spotlighting some of their high spirited hijinks and sensical/nonsensical humor, which is currently running at the Santa Monica Playhouse. It was followed by the Arpana Dance Company, based in Irvine who wore dark yellow dresses, and presented some very well rehearsed traditional Indian dances, in which all of the cast members moved in unison.
The global perspective was rounded off with additional presentations from the UCLA Chinese Cultural Dance Club, and Japanese classical songs and dances.
“I just wanted to thank the community for supporting us over the past decade. I enjoy bringing people together,” said festival organizer Kulov.
The idea for the event was to create an retrospective in celebration of everything that had been accomplished in celebration of everything that had been accomplished over the last 10 years’ worth of events and to reunite tea lovers who had atteded and presented as an educator or performer in prior years.
Kulov screened a short film to accompany the festival’s achievements, he also announced that a retrospective book will be published in May.
“I cannot believe that what started as tea parties for my little nieces some 15 years ago has grown into a big public event,” he said.
Kulov explained that children are attracted to tea parties because it gives them the opportunity to dress up and feel important. “I think they like the pretend part about it. It’s a communal kind of a thing,” he said. “there are sweets and there is tea, there is crafting, it’s like getting the chance to become an adult for a short period of time.”
For more information on the Tea lovers Festival and their upcoming book release party visit tealoversfestival.com.
