A unique international competition among tea professionals - Tea Masters Cup ™ (TMC), reaches a new level. For the first time world superiority will be held 3-5 September in Istanbul (Turkey) at the World Food Istanbul, which is one of the largest and most successful food and drink exhibition of this region. Turkey will bring together national champions from several countries, which previously passed the qualifying preliminaries. The aim of Tea Masters Cup is to foster the development of high cultural traditions involving tea consumption and raise the status of tea culture among consumers. It also helps to identify promising tea industry professionals and aid their career growth and professional development. Tea Masters Cup fosters professional development and exchange of ideas among specialists in the hospitality industry, the specialized retail/wholesale industry and the tea processing industry. Tea Master Cup will undoubtedly create a completely new attitude to such trendy categories as high quality and unique tea , which has a great potential for its development in the near future. Turkey was especially chosen as the venue for the first World Championship. As a country with a long and rich tea culture, which occupies the 3-d place in the world in consumption of tea (after China and India), it is still not too well-known for the most of the tea experts. And since the purpose of the Tea Masters Cup ™ project is not only to identify the best of the best tea masters in the world, but also the expansion of knowledge about tea, the opening of new areas and also to establish professional contacts, the Principal Organizing Committee of Tea Masters Cup International decided to combine all of these needs in one location and slightly open Turkey to other tea world. In addition, the capital of the first World Championship has convenient location, being at the crossroads linking the European and Asian regions. Tea masters will demonstrate to the authoritative international Judges their skills in 3 categories. In Tea Preparation category the masters is given 15 minutes to demonstrate the skill of tea preparation by brewing and presenting two beverages: tea provided by the organizers and a master tea (brewed from any tea according to their own recipe). The master competing in the Tea Paring category must demonstrate skills of presenting tea in combination with a light food/snack. In a Tea Tasting category the masters must demonstrate skills of degustation by being able to identify beverage samples of single varieties of teas and multi-component beverages from fruit and herbal ingredients. The best tea master in each category will be defined and get a proud title of World Champion. Head Judge of the competition appointed the representative of Russia - Denis Shumakov*.  After completing the championship, competitors will visit the best tea plantations and factories in Turkey, located in the north of the country, near the town of Rize - the homeland of Turkish tea. Cup will be held with the support of Rize Commodities Exchange and the Turkish Tea Association. General sponsor of the event will be the largest tea company in Turkey and one of the leaders of the world tea industry – Caykur. Source: teamasterscup.com