European Tea Culture Conference 2024 (Dresden)

The first European Tea Cul­ture Con­fer­ence took place in May 2024 in Dresden und was atten­ded by tea experts from Ger­many, the UK, Bel­gi­um, Canada, Slov­e­nia, the US, Thai­l­and, Japan, Switzer­land, Sweden, Czech Repub­lic, Geor­gia and was struc­tured in five inter­est­ing sessions:

• Culin­ary Tea enjoyment
• Tea & Sustainability
• It’s teatime: Cere­mo­ni­al tea traditions
• Tea Nar­rat­ives & Art
• European tea and pairings

The par­ti­cipants presen­ted papers and posters about dif­fer­ent tra­di­tions, rituals and habits regard­ing pre­par­ing and con­sum­ing tea, about tea and health/​arts and sus­tain­ab­il­ity, but also about tea as an entre­pren­eur­i­al impulse, and tea plant­a­tions in Europe.

The pro­grammes included a tea recep­tion at the Steigen­ber­ger Hotel de Saxe, and a Gala Teatime at the Kem­p­in­ski Hotel Taschen­ber­g­pal­ais Dresden, was enriched by an exhib­i­tion of art­ful tea pic­tures by Michael Pier­acci (“This is tea”), and a con­cert in the fam­ous “Dresdner Frauen­kirche” as well as by a guided tour at the Sem­per Opera and a vis­it of three fam­ily owned tea shops in the vibrant “Neustadt” dis­trict incl. a glass of milk in the world’s most prestig­ous cheese and milk store: Pfund’s Molkerei. In addi­tion, Kan­negießer Ker­amik designed a very spe­cial ‘Dresden tea­cup’. This white por­cel­ain tea­cup in Bauhaus style fea­tur­ing the sil­hou­ette of the Dresden sky­line was pro­duced exclus­ively for this con­fer­ence. All par­ti­cipants received this cup as a unique souven­ir of this pion­eer­ing con­fer­ence in Dresden.

This mix of tour­ist­ic attrac­tion, cul­tur­al high­lights and inter­na­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions with a big vari­ety of views on tea made this con­fer­ence a very spe­cial place of net­work­ing and col­lab­or­a­tion. It was also the launch of the book “Tea Cul­tures of Europe”, edited by Prof. Dr. Hartwig Bohne, and the start of a reg­u­lar series of tea con­fer­ences and symposiums.

Thanks to the gen­er­ous sup­port of our spon­sors, this con­fer­ence could be designed with pas­sion and hap­pi­ness. Our spon­sors: Dresden Mar­ket­ing GmbH, SRH Uni­ver­sity, Bilder­berg Hotel Dresden, Steigen­ber­ger Hotel de Saxe Dresden, Kem­p­in­ski Hotel Taschen­ber­g­pal­ais Dresden, Tee- und Kaf­feezeit Dresden, Teerausch Dresden, Tee­wald Dresden, ALTHAUS TEA, Dr. Quendt, Bremer Tee­han­del­skon­tor, Neuk­irch­er Porzel­lan Man­u­fak­tur, van Nah­men, Perch’s Thehan­del, Camon­das Schokolade, Chá Camélia, Kan­negießer Keramik.