2011 World Tea Expo Agenda Covers Retail Trends, Rare Teas

The 2011 World Tea Expo, to be held June 24-26 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, boasts the largest and most comprehensive tea curriculum in the world. It will feature targeted, focused sessions that address all things tea — the hottest tea topics, latest trends and most relevant education for tea professionals and retailers today.

Some of the educational subjects at 2011 World Tea Expo include launching a dynamic tea brand, tea business analytics, top tea retail trends, creating exotic signature tea blends, the art of chai, menu planning for tea rooms and a session that asks attendees, "Can you tell the difference between a $20-a-pound tea and a $200-a-pound tea?”

“There's never been a more exhilarating time for tea, and this is the year for tea businesses to learn all they can to take their company to the next level," says George Jage, president of World Tea Expo. "The expo covers almost every imaginable tea topic, to help professionals deliver quality tea, increase profits, reach new markets and share tea's rich history, culture and community.”

This year's World Tea Expo also features the World Origin Tasting Tour, an interactive and informative program that allows attendees to experience the tastes and cultures of some of the most important tea-growing regions in the world, including Sri Lanka, India, China, Japan and Taiwan. Expert tour guides are scheduled to lead attendees on a journey through each country's tea culture and unique manufacturing processes. During the tour, attendees may taste six to eight teas that are authentic to each origin, giving them a solid understanding of the flavors and profiles of the regions.

In one key session, "Functional Tea Trends," attendees will learn what's new in the science and regulation of tea, and how to assess both the scientific and legal merits of new marketing opportunities in tea.

For a complete list of World Tea Expo topics and sessions, visit www.worldteaexpo.com.

Source: World Tea Expo

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Tea Party Sets the Agenda, and Legislators Fall in Line

As a result, the Tea Party’s objectives have been the top priorities of lawmakers. And in case the politicians lost sight of those goals, the Legislature’s new Tea Party Caucus has been a constant reminder.

“It’s been a huge success,” said Senator Dan Patrick, Republican of Houston and chairman of the Tea Party Caucus of Texas.

A month before the legislative session began, Mr. Patrick declared the Tea Party “the most important political movement of our lifetime” and announced the formation of the caucus with 48 fellow Republican legislators. The lawmakers would take cues from an advisory board of citizen Tea Party members and ensure that the message they sent at the ballot box was translated into legislation.

The caucus agenda included balancing the budget without increasing taxes, securing the border and ending illegal immigration, asserting state sovereignty and requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls.

Just days after the session started, Mr. Perry declared voter ID an emergency issue, putting it on the fast track for approval. Over the objections of Democrats who had successfully fought the requirement in previous years, the bill sailed through both chambers and onto Mr. Perry’s desk.

The House created a special “state sovereignty” committee that approved a slew of resolutions urging Congress to stay out of Texas’ business when it comes to issues like health care and the environment. One resolution — another emergency item declared by Mr. Perry — called for amending the United States Constitution to require a balanced federal budget. On Friday, the Senate, following the lead of the House, approved the resolution and sent it to Mr. Perry.

“They’re a very vocal and important constituency,” Mark Miner, the governor’s spokesman, said of the Tea Party.

Legislators came into the session facing a shortfall of up to $27 billion in the state’s 2012-13 budget. Mr. Perry and Republican lawmakers made it clear that gap would be closed without new taxes and without using the state’s Rainy Day Fund. “That was a call heard loud and clear at the ballot box,” said Representative Van Taylor, Republican of Plano.

In March, the Tea Party Advisory Committee issued a 14-point budget-cutting plan that included a state hiring freeze, suspending financing for parks and arts and historical sites, and cutting pay for state employees. When Republican budget writers in the Senate proposed dipping into the Rainy Day Fund, the group stepped in, calling on lawmakers. The plan was quickly shelved, and deeper cuts were made.

The Tea Party also found common cause with well-heeled conservative advocacy organizations like the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Empower Texans, which push strict conservative orthodoxy on budget cutting.

“There’s a real coalition of external forces here that really put moderates in the Legislature — never mind the Democrats — in a real bind,” said Jim Henson, who directs the Texas Politics Project in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin.

Without the Tea Party, Mr. Patrick said, he was certain lawmakers would have raided the Rainy Day Fund as they did in 2003 and in 2005 — under the governor’s leadership. “Pressure from the outside gave us the wind at our backs that we needed to prevail,” he said.

One issue on the Tea Party agenda that has not met with success, so far, is a call for stricter immigration enforcement. A measure that would abolish so-called sanctuary cities — where local governments prevent police from enforcing immigration laws — has been plagued with troubles. Still, the only part of the state’s budget to escape major cuts has been border security.

Democrats in the Legislature, pushed almost to the point of irrelevancy, have been reduced to using parliamentary maneuvers and complaining about the deeply conservative agenda enacted around them.

Representative Jessica Farrar of Houston, leader of the House Democrats, predicted the budget cutting would create a “fiscal disaster” that even conservative activists would not like. “What happened here actually will erode the Tea Party,” Ms. Farrar said.

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