Presenter Bios:

James Norwood Pratt

Brett Boynton

Michael J Coffey

Babette Donaldson

Isaac Dumiel

Donna Fellman

Suzette Hammond

Becky Li

Amy Lawrence

Bernadette Petrotta

Devan & Reena Shah

Lisa Boalt Richardson

Shiuwen Tai

Dr. Eric Yarnell

James Norwood Pratt

James Norwood Pratt is an author and authority on wine, tea and tea lore. He was born March 27, 1942, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and brought up in Forsyth County, North Carolina on land which has been in his family since before the American Revolution. He was educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and in Europe and since 1965 has lived chiefly in San Francisco.

Literary works

In California he wrote his first book "The Wine Bibber's Bible" (1971). He is best known for his books on tea "The Tea Lover's Treasury" (1982), "The Tea Lover's Companion" (1995), and the whimsical "Reading Tea Leaves" (1996) authored as "by a Highland Seer."

In 2000 he brought out "James Norwood Pratt's NEW Tea Lover's Treasury," a complete re-casting of his earlier work in the light of increased information. This book has been translated into German with the title "Tee fur Geniesse" and is often used as a training manual in the US tea trade.

Tea trade milestones

He was named Honorary Director of Imperial Tea Court, a traditional Chinese teahouse which opened in 1993 in San Francisco. Mr. Pratt has played a major role in disseminating China tea information and tea ways in America and the West. He first anglicized the name for the Chinese covered cup, for example, as “gaiwan” and on second thought changed the spelling to “guywan.” Both spellings are now found in English, French and German.