(about the international tea symposium in the Czech Republic)
In a small cozy village in the south of the Czech Republic, where we sipped tea from morning till night, I was soaked in the flavors and impressions that beg to be shared, since the idea of the event and the atmosphere are unique.
It all started for me with an announcement in social media about an international tea symposium in the Czech Republic for 5 days, where in a small group of 12 people it was offered to “dive” into the tea theme in its various aspects. The program of the event sounded very inspiring, with a good balance of relaxation and workshops, plus it was an opportunity to meet tea lovers from different countries. I haven’t met the organizers before but their approach was very appealing and I signed up without hesitation.
At the beginning of July, I found myself in a small Czech village, in a very cozy, large, old, beautiful country house, which hospitality embraced 13 participants, 3 organizers – tea specialists, and 4 masters of different workshops. The program started every day with a 3 hour workshop devoted to tea or tea related topic (ikebana, incense, wood carving) followed by delicious vegetarian lunch and free time. It was up to the participants what to do – whether to go to the garden and enjoy teas together, or dive deeper in the topic of a morning workshop, sleep or take a walk. There was a wide range of teas from the organizers’ collection for free tasting as well as beautiful tea ware for free use. Surprisingly nothing was broken within 5 days and a lot of teas enjoyed.
The organizers was a Czech tea company “Meetea”, they have a tea shop and tea studio in Prague and have been organizing a lot of tea activities in their country for many years and did a lot for the development of Czech tea culture.
People came to the symposium with very different tea experiences, from a variety of countries: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Portugal, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, France, Belarus. Sometimes 4 languages were spoken at once at the table, but lingua franca was English.
At some point of our free after-lunch time I asked Tomas Rajnoch, the main organizer of the event and the owner of the event place to share with me his company tea story. He brewed old Liubao tea and we shared it while he was telling his story.
It all started for him with his big interest in Chinese culture and his trips to this far land since 2004. After every trip he brought home some good tea, immersing himself more and more in tea culture. Then he began selling tea online and offering tea catering, after a while an idea came to organize a tea subscription and create own tea brand “Meetea”. Step by step he opened tea studio in Prague.
“There was a moment in the work of the studio, when I suddenly realized that I work just to cover the rent and keep myself busy, but the motivation and vision disappeared, and it was not how I wanted it to be. So at some point I even was ready to close it. And then Jacob Seif came along, we became partners and created a tea company, opened a shop with opening hours and a wide range of teas, which we carefully selected. Now we have a lot of different events, sometimes quiet and meditative, sometimes with lots of people and very noisy. A little later, Christoph joined us as an employee, and very quickly became a very important person in our company.“
– How did you come up with the idea of tea symposium?
– My parents bought this house, and when I saw it for the first time, I loved this place, its wabi-sabi atmosphere, old trees, the garden and the old house. I was lucky that my parents agreed to let us organize events here. At that time, I was interested in pottery and I went to a week-long wood-fired event with our famous pottery masters, and I was so impressed by the atmosphere that I decided to do something similar, but with tea. And 9 years ago, my wife, one tea master and calligrapher Vojtěch Timoteus Mistr and I did the first tea school for 5 days in this house. From morning till night we brewed tea, taught many aspects, created an atmosphere, there was a lot of creativity, joy, inspiration. 12 people participated, and we liked it so much that we started repeating it every summer, often 2 times a summer. Some people came every summer and at some point we realized that they no longer needed tea workshops – they already knew everything, they just liked being here, drinking tea with friends, relaxing. And we thought that perhaps we shouldn’t load people with lectures and master classes all the time – we can do more free time.
And then the idea of a symposium was born, drinking tea together in a small company. Three hours a day for the workshop, and the rest of the time for communication. Every day a new topic, a new master of pottery, ikebana, carpentry – all those topics that are somehow connected with tea.
– How quickly did people apply for the first international tea symposium this year?
– We did tea symposium international for the first time, it was our big dream and big challenge at the same time as we didnt know if people would apply. It was so great that so many people applied and took such a long way to this small village in the middle of nowhere. It was fully booked quite quickly, may be due to its freshness and new idea. We started in the bubble of Czech tea lovers and now it is growing for Europe and it is very natural for us having more and more friends from different countries. It is very beautiful to see how the community is growing and connecting and we are happy to share this hidden space with them.
Many of our guests find us through tea festivals, where we promoted this event a lot by giving flyers. For me personally I also take this symposium as a tea festival, when during 5 days 13 people have enough time to share tea and conversation and go deeper.
For my part I can say that this event brought me a lot of inspiration and was a good reboot, because of nature, tea, atmosphere, delicious food, a cozy space, wonderful tea people.
Tea workshops were devoted to the art of tea-tasting and puerh phenomena and were very lively and interactive where we investigated different tastes and aromas.
I was very inspired by the wood carving workshop organized by Vlastimil Hanuš a Jan Šmejkal. We carved tea trays for ourselves until calluses appeared on our hands and joy filled our hearts.
Kodo – Japanese path of aroma – was also a beautiful discovery for us. Sven Schwannberger told us a lot about the variety of aromas and generously shared them with us.
Ikebana was not a new topic for me personally, but Martin Hanuš, who is a well known potter and part of his soul is Japanese, was a real discovery for me concerning his attitude to life. He touched us with ikebana very gently and everybody created a beautiful peace of art.
I asked other participants about their aftertaste, and everyone was very impressed by all beautiful things that happened in a very calm and natural way. And the biggest treasure as always were people and quiet tea threads of contacts.
The Czech Republic is known for its active and deeply rooted tea scene. Thomas told me there are currently 3-5 very large wholesale tea companies in the Czech Republic, one tea shop run by Chinese owner and about 10 small specialty tea shops who import artisan teas. The market is small and the competition is high.
Tea festivals are quite often organized in the Czech Republic and open for the tea lovers from all over the world. And now in the list of annual tea events there is international tea symposium. I wish all the best to this beautiful project and may more tea lovers join it in the coming years. More info about conditions you may find here
