These unique events offer the opportunity to experience workshops, classes, and tastings with some of the leading experts in the Tea Industry. Classes range from beginner level to advanced, and each offers a unique view of the world of premium tea.

Saturday August 4

9:00 am - Cooking with Tea with Lenny Martinelli
Experience the variety of ways that tea can be used in the culinary arts, in this unique, hands on class with the Executive Chef and owner of the Teahouse, Lenny Martinelli. Using all kinds of tea, including black, oolong, green, and herbal, Mr. Martinelli will demonstrate the versatility of the leaves with delicious, unique recipes that you can recreate at home. Participants will have the opportunity to taste the dishes made, as well as take home the recipes.

Lenny Martinelli is Owner and Executive Chef of the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse and is actively involved in the daily operations. Mr. Martinelli has over 20 years experience in the hospitality industry from bussing tables to ownership. He is also the owner and operator of the Naropa Cafe, Aji Latin American Restaurant, Leaf Vegetarian Restaurant, and The Huckleberry, in Louisville.
Lenny has developed the “Tea Dinners “ for the Rocky Mountain Tea Festivals for the past five years.

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11:00 am - How Production Techniques Influence Brewing Methods with Donna Fellman
How can one leaf yield so many types of teas and leaf styles? It’s all in the processing. First developed in the hands of tea masters in China, tea production techniques used today have evolved over thousands of years. Each small step has a purpose. Learn about the basics of tea processing and then you can understand how just looking at the physical appearance of a tea leaf can tell you a lot about how to steep it. You’ll even have an idea about what temperature water to use and how long to infuse the leaf to bring out its best aspects. Come learn the secrets behind those lovely “leaf styles,” why so many tea leaves look so different from one another and how to brew a delicious cup of tea from them.

Donna Fellman
Donna Fellman does more than drink tea, she lives it. As director of T·E·A, the Tea Education Alliance, she is dedicated to promoting tea and the tea lifestyle through education and experience and offers workshops, classes, professional consulting and tea training. Donna is currently the chairman of the Specialty Tea Institute’s education committee, developing and delivering the tea industry’s Professional Certification Program. She is the co-author of Tea Here Now, (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2005) exploring tea as a lifestyle and she is a student of chanoyu, the Japanese tea ceremony. In her pursuit of tea knowledge she has traveled to India, Japan and Taiwan.

1:00 pm - All that is Called Tea is Not Tea

This workshop will explore the differences between black, green, oolong and white teas. Learn about different cultivation techniques, and how these affect the quality of the final product. Mr Cooper will discuss the market supply and demand, and how those factors determine the availability and cost of the product. In addition, the discussion will discuss some herbs and how they differ in cultivation, supply an demand in the global marketplace. Popular hebs include hibiscus, chamomile, and rosehips.

Barry W. Cooper is the CEO and chairman of the Cooper Tea Company. Barry founded the company in 2005 after having spent over 40 years tasting and blending teas. After completing his four-decade apprenticeship, Barry has earned international recognition as a Tea Master and is considered to be the only living, classically-trained Tea and Herb Master in the world.

Barry is also the founder of SNA Tea Company, a leading private-label tea company with ownership in modern tea packaging facilities and tea plantations. Raised in the tea-growing highlands of Kenya, and trained in the British tea houses, Barry’s career flourished into a lifetime of traveling to remote parts of the world sourcing and tasting teas. Barry joined Lipton in 1965 and spent over twenty years in their employ. He was also an owner, investor and manger of Celestial Seasonings when the company went through a leveraged buyout in 1988.

Barry is deeply interested in all aspects of the tea trade and is the former chairman of the Tea Association of the United States. In 2006 he was appointed to serve as a technical advisor to the U. S. government delegation participating in the Intergovernmental United Nations Food and Agricultural working group on tea. He has been retained as a consultant to the World Bank, the Sri Lankan government, and the People’s Republic of China regarding tea issues. He is also a tea spokesperson for a number of Fortune 500 Companies and has served on the FDA Board of Tea Appeals and as a U.S. Representative to the UNCTAD/GATT Trade Negotiations.

Barry holds a number of patents for tea preparation and manufacturing. He has published a series of articles on these subjects in the Tea and Coffee Trade Journal. He is a frequent speaker at industry seminars and is also the author of Never Throw Rocks at a Baboon: Adventures of a Tea Man in Africa

3:00 pm - Exotic Green Teas of China with Roy Fong

Roy Fong is the founder and proprietor of San Francisco’s Imperial Tea Court, the first traditional Chinese teahouse in America. A native of Hong Kong, Mr. Fong was introduced to tea early in life, and has spent many years developing close relations with tea growers and producers in mainland China and Taiwan. Each year he visits select tea gardens to supervise all aspects of production - from planting and cultivation to harvesting, processing and grading. In addition, he has built close ties with the historic pottery workshops of Yixing in Jiangsu province and imports dozens of exceptional “purple sand” teapots to the United States each year - many of which are his own special designs and commissions.

During his term as Head of Research & Development for the International Tea Masters Association, Mr. Fong spent several years directing and personally over-seeing the award-winning "Lotus Heart" Dragon Well tea program in the renowned West Lake area of Hangzhou, China. In 1997 an international jury awarded his “Imperial Green” tea first place at the Tea Masters annual conference.

In 1998 he was invited to participate in ceremonies commemorating the restoration of the tea gardens at Jingshan in Zhejiang province - one of the oldest and most significant tea sites in China, dating back to the Tang dynasty (618-906). An account of the historic event was published in the July/August 1998 issue of TEA magazine, for which Mr. Fong has served as consultant and International Director, providing numerous articles on a wide variety of topics including tea history, production and related cultural matters.

Presently, Mr. Fong, an ordained Daoist priest, is endeavoring to reestablish the ancient rite of tea dating back to the time of China’s greatest tea master, Lu Yu, who lived during the Tang dynasty and wrote his famous book the Cha Ching (“Tea Scripture”) around the year 780. Roy is also currently working on his own book which will be a comprehensive guide to the teas of China, including sections concerning the history of tea in general, the origins of the varieties we know today, the various methods of tea processing and detailed discussions of the different methods of tea preparation and service.

Roy has been featured in numerous publications, including: The New York Times, Forbes, Gourmet, Sunset Magazine, and has appeared on the National Public Radio program “Talk of then Nation”. He, his wife Grace, and their two daughters make their home in the San Francisco Bay area.

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7:00 pm - Tea Leaf Reading with Morwyn
The gentle art of divining your future in a teacup has been practiced for centuries. One of the reasons why it has remained popular into contemporary times is because it causes us to pause in our hectic daily lives, relax, and reach down deep within ourselves to contemplate the larger issues of life. Tea leaf reading enables you to travel deeply into your subconscious mind and make connections between personal images and universal symbols to help guide you on your life's journey. In this workshop, Morwyn will present some of the history and techniques of tea leaf reading taken from cultures worldwide. You’ll have the opportunity to practice by reading two cups. Learn to read your cup every day, and each time, receive fresh inspiration.

Morwyn has written seven books on esoterica and the occult, including The Complete Book of Psychic Arts. Under the name Doña Carolina da Silva, she is co-authoring a series of 16 books in Spanish. Morwyn has given many tea leaf reading workshops both in the USA and in the UK based on the information on tea from her book Green Magic.

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Sunday August 5

10:00 am - Taiwanese Oolong Tasting with Brian Wright
This hands-on tasting will feature several spring 2007 oolong teas from Taiwan. Participants will compare the diverse range of flavors found among oolong teas, and at the same time get experience brewing them gongfu style, using a small unglazed teapot. The geography of Taiwanese teas, nuances of seasonal variation, and basics of tea processing will also be discussed. This workshop offers the chance to taste some of the finest oolong teas from Taiwan, (Formosa)often considered some of the best teas in the world.

Brian J. Wright, proprietor of Shan Shui Teas in Washington DC, became enamored with Chinese tea while studying in Taipei and Beijing in 1989-90. He continued his hobby after returning to the U.S., and expanded it into a business in 1993 to satisfy his friends' appetites for fine tea. Currently, Brian specializes in providing top quality Taiwanese oolong teas, Korean green teas, and teaware for their preparation.

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1:00 pm - Puerh Teas of China
with David Lee Hoffman

Join David Lee Hoffman in a discussion and presentation of his many adventures in the backcountry of China in search of premium tea. Learn the methods of tea cultivation on traditional Chinese tea farms, and how Mr. Hoffman hand chooses each tea that he imports to the US. This class offers the opportunity to taste some of Mr. Hoffman's teas, often unavailable from any other source, with special emphasis on the exotic Puerh teas from the Yunnan region.

David Lee Hoffman has been traveling the backcountry of Asia for 26 years seeking out the finest, best tasting leaves. With his passion for tea and a background in vermiculture and soil fertility, he is now working in China with the prestigious Tea Institute and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to implement sustainable organic tea farming. Mr. Hoffman is the founder of Silk Road Teas.

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3:00 pm - Pairing Tea and Chocolate with Frederick Schilling

Tea and chocolate are two of nature's most treasured gifts. Join Dagoba Chocolate founder, Frederick Schilling, as he explores the way the two can be paired to create an even more decadent and indulgent experience. Pamper yourself with some of the world's finest organic chocolate and the flavor's of this year's freshest premium tea.

Frederick Schilling founded Dagoba Chocolate in 2001 to realize his mission - to make exquisite chocolate through "full circle" sustainability - blending quality, equity, ecology, and community. Frederick’s love for chocolate developed while he was a chef looking for a career change, and experimented with chocolate and chai. “I’m a huge fan of chai, and adding ginger to the chai-chocolate mix sent it over the top!” Following his intuition, Frederick turned his full attention to chocolate alchemy. “I was in the kitchen all the time blending this and that, with family and friends infusing their creativity.” Frederick regularly travels to cacao producing countries to locate high quality sources, establish direct trading partnerships, collaborate on post-harvest processing, and document how equitable cacao trading supports community groups and reforestation efforts. This is an intensive process that is rare in the industry, but it is essential for Dagoba’s mission and the company wouldn’t have it any other way.

Previous seminar schedules of The Rocky Mountain Tea Festival

2005 Schedule
2003 Schedule
2002 Schedule
2001 Schedule
2000 Schedule
1999 Schedule