The organizers dressed in beautiful attire enthrall the audience with the art of the tea dance featuring the making of tea and the offering of the cups on a tray. The visitors sip the small cups and take the small tea packets home as gifts.
"The tea culture is a key part of traditional Chinese culture and the exhibition is an effort to show our culture using tea as a symbol," said Wang Xufeng, dean of the Tea Culture School in Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University.
Wang has written a book on tea called, The stories of tea, tracing origins of the world's popular drink.
"We know India is a country of milk and sugar and the people have the culture of mixing milk and sugar to their tea. Indian tea is heavier in taste if taken black, so we are here to showcase our tea and ask people to taste it."
At the tea exhibition stall, the organizers have brought six kinds of tea for the Indian visitors.
"We have only brought six kinds of tea here. The green tea, the black tea, the white tea, the yellow tea, the dark tea and the Oolong tea," Tu Youying, director of the Department of Tea Science at the College of Agriculture & Biotechnology, Zhejiang University said.
The fair will continue until Jan. 17 much to the delight of book lovers.
"It is really good to have a taste of real Chinese tea. Frankly speaking, it has refreshed my taste buds," Amit Malhotra said. "I am definitely going to spread the word about this tea exhibition to my friends."
This year, the guest of honor is China, which has set up a beautifully designed pavilion spread over 1,200 square meters in hall number 7 to showcase Chinese books translated into English.
More than 250 Chinese delegates including publishers and authors are participating in the book fair. Around 5,000 Chinese books will be showcased in the nine-day-long fair and books translated from the Chinese language into English and Hindi are conspicuously on display.
Some 30 countries from around the world including Egypt, Germany, Nepal, Poland, Spain, Saudi Arabia are taking part in the fair, besides international agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The fair, touted as "Asia's largest book fair," last year attracted around 1 million visitors. However, this year the expectations are higher and organizers look forward to seeing an increase in daily footfall.
Around Delhi, billboards and posters about the book fair are dotting the roads and markets. Even posters have been pasted on the back of auto rickshaws to spread the word about the fair.
