Art:Sync is bringing Brighton communities together to explore and celebrate each group’s cultural relationship with tea, from the everyday to the ritualistic and reverential through a series of events called Crossing the Teas.

Meetings with each group allowed the organisation to delve into these rituals and individual emotional resonances of tea from English Breakfast to Yerba Mate and Jasmine.

The Big Tea Party brought together all the communities under one roof to serve one another tea and snacks, celebrating the differences and similarities between cultures, all centred around a teapot. Attendees were given tokens to sample the variety which included Japanese, West Country and Chinese.

The atmosphere was buzzing with people coming and going, nicely complimented by onstage performances responding to the connection with tea or with native landscapes. However the real theatre experience was happening around each table - as participants consumed tea and cake, shared facts about the ingredients of tea and began cross-cultural conversations.

Crossing The Teas was a great celebration of multicultural Brighton, highlighting and exploring each culture. It will be really exciting to see how this idea develops and what part it might play in bringing together the diverse communities of Brighton.

Four stars