Free Eugene Tea Festival draws 3,000, plans fifth year

The Eugene Tea Festival drew roughly 3,000 people to the Farmers Market Pavilion on Sunday, turning a once-niche gathering into a downtown event with clear pull for Lane County’s small vendors and tea sellers. What started as a modest debut in 2023 has now grown into a festival with 67 vendors, free general admission and a fifth year already planned for next May.

The festival ran from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 31, at the Farmers Market Pavilion, 85 East 8th Avenue, with compostable cups available at registration. That free entry appears to have lowered the barrier for casual visitors, while also widening the crowd for the local businesses, artisans and tea makers set up inside the pavilion.

Founded in 2019 by Madelaine Au and first launched in May 2023, the Eugene Tea Festival was created to cultivate and celebrate the tea community in Eugene and Springfield. Organizers say the event relies on volunteers and the local tea community, and the growth from 500 attendees in 2023 to 1,000 in 2024 showed how quickly the idea took hold. By the 2024 edition, the festival had grown to about 60 vendors; this year it expanded again to 67.

Josh Chamberlain of J-Tea said Eugene is not a tea culture by default, a reminder that the festival is helping build that culture as much as it reflects it. The event’s appeal has been part social gathering, part local marketplace, with interactive tea circles and local artisans adding to the draw. For downtown Eugene, that means more foot traffic at a central venue and a stronger case for the kind of low-cost, family-friendly event that can bring people back year after year.

The festival’s organizers have framed it as more than a single-day tasting. They have positioned it as a place to slow down, savor the moment and connect with a community that spans continents and centuries. After four years, the crowd at the Farmers Market Pavilion suggested that message has found an audience, and the planned return next May points to a festival that is settling in as a regular part of Eugene’s spring calendar.