On 25th of November 2012, the CI organized The Second Edition of the Chinese Tea Culture Festival in Iulius Mall, Cluj-Napoca. The Chinese Tea Culture Festival was organized to reflect the theme of "Tea and Zen" through the exhibition of Chinese calligrapher Mr. Gong Xiaobin’s calligraphic work written for the Confucius Institute. At the Festival, over 600 people had the chance to taste different varieties of Chinese tea, like green tea, jasmine tea, Tie Guan Yin, Pu'er and so on. Besides tea tasting, the Cluj public had the opportunity to take part in various interactive cultural activities with an estimated 1500 people attending.

 

By using the fine tea set donated by Hanban, the event introduced the Chinese traditional tea culture to the Romanian public, from tea-making details: types, qualities, recommendations, to ways of serving. Meanwhile, the event also gave the public the opportunity to receive free brochures about tea and its benefits for health. The tea festival also offered the chance to take part in various cultural programs such as watching Chinese tea culture documentary, attending a book exhibition, and receiving unique bookmarks with quotations from ancient Chinese philosophers. Moreover, the public could learn to play Chinese games and was introduced to the art of Chinese paper cutting. Besides these activities, the most welcomed one was the Chinese characters transcript of the Romanian names by Chinese and Romanian teachers, with people waiting in large queues.

 

In addition, the CI Chinese teacher Zhu Xiao Bin also performed the traditional folk acrobatic program “Diabolo”. The performance which reflected the richness of Chinese traditional folk culture was greatly appreciated by the audience and was rewarded with lasting applause.