The sixth annual Pasadena Festival of Tea will take place at the Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden on Sunday, April 6, 2025 from 10am to 4pm. The garden is located at 270 Arlington Dr., Pasadena, CA 91105. Phone number: (626) 399-1721
Three Sessions: 10:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m.
Admission $20 per person
Tea Demos: $25
Children 12 and under are free
Registration is Required for Admission and Special Programs
Tickets can be purchased through the website
The festival celebrates the many forms of this healthful beverage in the serene setting of a traditional Japanese garden and exquisite Japanese teahouse.
Several local tea vendors will represent various Japanese and Chinese tea traditions and offer tea samplings and share expert knowledge and advice about tea.
JT &T (Taiwan Tea - https://jtteainc.com/) will specialize in Taiwanese Oolong Tea.
Bana Tea (https://www.banateacompany.com) will serve premium Chinese Puerh tea.
Callisto Teahouse (https://www.callistoteahouse.com/) will providing Chinese Gongfu tea demonstrations.
TTT (Japanese tea https://tea-tea-tea.com/) will serve Japanese tea, host a Matcha Café, and present Shoshi Watanabe ceramics.
Takuma Ienaga will specialize Japanese Yame tea and Arita ceramics from Kyushu, Japan.
The festival will also be joined by ceramic artist Julie Bagish, who will be selling her beautiful Japanese-style tea ceremony and other tea wares.
The garden’s gift shop, Takara-ten, will offer an array of antique and vintage items that make wonderful gifts, including a special sale of vintage kimonos. Garden Donors receive 10% off shop purchases. The festival will also be selling Japanese canned ice tea and snacks to enjoy in the garden.
For a limited number of guests, traditional Japanese tea ceremony demonstrations with tea practitioner Mikko Nakatomi (seating at 11am, 1pm and 2pm) will be held in the garden’s Japanese Niko-an teahouse.
Reservations are required for admission to the Pasadena Festival of Tea. Admission will be for three times: 10am, 12pm, 2pm and will cost $20 each (children 12 and under are free).
Additional reservations are necessary for the Japanese tea ceremony demo. Admission to the Festival includes a special a custom-made Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden porcelain tea tasting cup, which can be picked up at check-in (additional cups for children can be purchased at the garden for $2 each).
The Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden was created by Japanese immigrant Kinzuchi Fujii from 1935-1942 as a private garden for his patrons, Charles and Ellamae Storrier Stearns. Fujii designed and built Japanese landscapes across Southern California in the first half of the 20th century, and the Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden is his only remaining – and finest – garden.
The garden, listed in the National Register of Historic Places and designated a California Historical Landmark, was restored from 2000-2015 and has been open to the public since 2013 on a limited basis, and in early 2015 a non-profit was established to manage the garden and open it to the public regularly as a venue for educational and cultural programming.
According to Kendall H. Brown, the leading historian of Japanese gardens in the U.S., the Storrier Stearns Garden “one of the finest Japanese-style gardens in the country.”
