Jasmine Tea

At last we made it to Ping Pong, the Chinese restaurant at Southbank which I've often walked past and wanted to go to. The range of dim sum was excellent, we sat out in a heated terrace and I loved the flowering jasmine tea. Served in large thermos glasses, they kept the heat in constantly. 

It reminded me of the first time I had this tea at Huxingting, the oldest teahouse in Shanghai, back in 2008. You could get flowering jasmine tea in the UK a few years ago, but it was not as easy to find it back then. Not a problem now - another sign of China emerging in London.  

Flowering Jasmine tea at Ping Pong

Flowering Jasmine served in glass teapots at Huxinting Teahouse 2008 

Celebrating Women's Day 2014 at Wow Festival Southbank

I'm enjoying a delicious cup of Assam tea bought from Tea People at the Women of the World Festival  this afternoon.  I had a chat with Dilip, the stall holder, and realise I know more about his company than I first thought, namely through the multi-talented designer entreprenuer, Gillian Gamble, who is behind so much of the creative work of this exciting young social enterprise.  I'm looking forward to seeing their new film about tea workers and their families - coming out soon. They're also in the April edition of Vogue.

I had called over to look around the WoW Festival, having run stalls there for the past two years - selling my own jewellery and the products made by my SEN students from Mulberry. I am glad that the business has been carried on this year by an enthusiastic member of staff and that we had the students colourful products being sold there once again. The Mulberry stall looked fantastic as always - we're very proud of the girls!! I hope they make a good profit after all the hard work.  Other Mulberry students will return on Sunday to sell more products - bath salts and other gifts.

Two stalls at Southbank

Spark Productions

Claire Hart Design

Here they are at the Women of the World Festival, my silver jewellery on the stall I shared with Flux  jeweller Alex Yule, and the glorious technicolour products my students made for the Mulberry stall!

Huge thanks to all the colleagues who helped set up the students' stall and brought them on the trip to Southbank. Thanks also to Tim Scott and Gillian Arnold for printing the mugs - they sold really well!

The students can't wait to count their earnings tomorrow........they'll discover that they did fantastically well:)

WoW Festival at Southbank

I saw Jesse Norman introducing some speed mentoring - from a distance! 

Sea Bamboo Bracelet with Butterflies

The Women of the World Festival at the Royal Festival Hall today was packed, with inspiring speakers and lots of info for women in business and in charity work.

Lovely chatting to people at the stall I'm sharing with Alex Yule Jewellery.10% of my sales this weekend goes towards Eden Ministries, a charity I've seen in action in Kunming. They successfully rescue women from trafficking, using a holistic approach, which includes providing them with safe accomodation and teaching them jewellery-making skills in workshops.

My students made fantastic sales today on their stall 'Spark Productions' - and came to help sell! They had a great time.

Looking forward to two more busy days at Southbank this weekend!