I am sitting here with an incredible cup of Darjeeling White tea, the perfect way to unwind and relax after almost a week of non stop tea!

We spent a lot of the last 3 weeks preparing for and finally attending the 2007 World Tea Expo (WTE) in Atlanta Georgia. The WTE is the worlds largest trade only tea expo. The energy of the show was amazing! We could not be more pleased with our results, far beyond our expectations.

We are excited by the many people we met that are new in or transitioning into the tea business and the overwhelming response that we as an organization received at the show. You could not get near our booth 99% of the time and for 2 of the 3 days we had people come back 3-4 times until they had a chance to talk with us.

One of our Taiwanese growers flew over for the 3 day show too talk with customers about the Golden Dragon Aged oolong, a Teas Etc exclusive. Our booth was so busy that C.H. ended up being adopted by our next door neighbor, a Puerh grower from Yunnan province in China.

We introduced our new travel mugs and our new "Tea Temp" tea thermometer both a huge success. Both are going to be featured in Gourmet Retailer magazine along with our new tea sampler gift packages, due out in August/September and our new 2 cup Ceremony side handle teapot, scheduled to hit the US by the end of July.

My Saturday presentation was also well received and I am glad that I had the opportunity to share some of my personal marketing successes and mishaps with those who attended.

I was interviewed on tearadio.com on Monday morning and I am scheduled to do an interview on a Korean radio station.

I had a great time meeting the members of the Southern Association of Teas Business an organization that I have been a member of for sometime but finally had an opportunity to meet the awesome members Friday evening at the dinner, which featured Jane Pettigrew as the speaker. I was really glad to hear that one of our members won the trip to Nilgiri! How exciting.

We have taken tons of pictures which I will post over the next few days. I will also share some of the cool businesses that we became newly acquainted with and if they are in your area stop in and visit them and tell them we sent you. But enough for now, I am settling in with my soothing cup of tea

Until next time, Beth