A Tea Addict's Journal

Entries tagged as ‘travel’

Dobra tearoom

February 9, 2009 · 16 Comments

I’m in Madison, Wisconsin, and while I walked around town today, I came across a tea room. It’s called Dobra Tea. I never let a tea room go by without at least taking a peek, and since they looked pretty ok from the outside, I decided to check it out.

I ended up spending a little time there. Even though I was in a bit of a rush, I wanted to try some tea, as they looked rather well managed, with at least a few heads screwed on straight. That can’t always be said about other tea places in this country. When I asked if they do take out tea, their answer was “only loose leaf that you can bring home and brew yourself”. Great, that means no carry out cups…. I like places that don’t compromise too much.

So I plucked myself down for a gaiwan of shuixian.

The gaiwan they used was a little too large for shuixian for one person, but then, I should’ve specified for a smaller gaiwan. The use of the little heating thing for water is rather interesting. Underneath is a tea light, which, admittedly, gives off some heat, but I suspect it’s not really enough to keep the water very hot for very long. If you stick around for a while and take some time between brews, your water can cool substantially. I think that happened to the people sitting next to me, who were three people sharing one pot (in a largish yixing). Their water container was much larger than mine, and I think a little tea light really isn’t going to do much other than having a placebo effect of keeping the water warm.

It is also interesting becuase I flipped over the kettle to take a look inside. It is obvious that they are either using water of a very high mineral content, or, perhaps, that people let the water burn for a long time without using it. I am guessing the latter, because there is obvious scale buildup in the kettles, and there was mineral particles floating in the water itself. I am not personally opposed to it, although I wonder if they have actively thought about this issue or not and how it might or might not affect the teas they make. It’s fine if you’re making black or puerh or even shuixian, but I think this water isn’t so good for, say, green tea. Too heavy.

These things aside though, they are really minor complaints. A place that uses gaiwan to serve tea? That’s an achievement in itself. The shuixian wasn’t all that bad either — it’s not a top notch tea, but it’s serviceable, and had enough aftertaste to keep things interesting.

I did a little research after coming back to figure out who they are. Turns out they are a Czech company that franchises out. No smoking in the States, but they do water pipes in the Czech Republic. (Website here). Anybody know anything more about these guys? I know I have readers from the Czech Republic.

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Small time tea stores

February 7, 2009 · 3 Comments

I’m pretty convinced, after being an observer of the industry for so many years, that if you want to start a serious tea shop in anything other than a major city in the United States, you either need very, very deep pockets, a unique town that has a critical mass of people who will buy that kind of stuff, or you need to compromise.

Compromise can come in many forms.  The most common is probably coffee, but it can also be bubble tea, or other tea “smoothie” drinks.  Other than coffee, the rest are usually sugar laden high caloric vehicles.  We’re genetically programmed to like things that are sweet and fat, whereas something bitter is usually an acquired taste.  It’s no wonder tea is less popular when drunk straight.

I recently visited a small town that had a store like that, but are now going out of business.  Even though it has a nice liberal arts college nearby and a population that’s generally considered the more tree-hugging, outdoor loving liberal type, a tea store still can’t make ends meet.  I am guessing they didn’t sell tea online, and didn’t have enough operating income from their store to keep it going.  I can see why — selling pounds of tea (if it comes to pounds at all) won’t get you all that much money.  Brewing it on the spot is probably a much higher margin business, but at the end of the day, if you don’t have enough foot traffic, you’re doomed.

It’s too bad, really, but there’s probably nothing to be done.  Even in big cities, such as Boston, tea-only stores struggle and generally don’t do much more than selling very generic teas.  It’s a tough business, and the online competition is just very stiff.  They have much lower overhead and can offer a wide variety of stuff, whereas a physical store is always going to cost more and be able to offer less.  Serious tea drinkers tend to just go online, buy a bunch of samples, and then buy the few they like in bulk.  Given population density, etc, I honestly don’t see that changing any time soon, no matter how much more tea Americans drink.

The most successful tea store I’ve seen in a smaller city in the US is one that I went to in Syracuse, NY, called Roji.  They still did bubble tea, but had just enough for the tea addict (me) to feel comfortable.  It seems like they’re still alive; I hope they will be for years to come.

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Fighting bad tea

January 27, 2009 · 3 Comments

I’ve been traveling a lot recently, which means not much time and chance to sit at home to make tea properly. When on the road, I am usually quite lazy and don’t always bring my own tea, and at any rate, circumstances often doesn’t allow me to brew tea in a good setting. Sometimes even hot water supply can be a problem. That means one thing — I buy from stores for tea to go.

That, however, has problems. Two recent experiences remind me why this is so perilous sometimes

1) Buying a cup of teabag tea which was infused with water that was not hot to the touch, but only lukewarm. I don’t know how this happened, but somehow the water that came out of the coffee brewing machine at the coffee shop delivered water that is less than hot, which means the tea was barely brewing. Only after much complaining did I get a new cup. They even claimed, initially, that that’s how warm the water is going to be and nothing was wrong. Do these people even know what tea is?

2) At another store that sells loose tea that gets thrown into a bag and then brewed. That’s usually a recipe for better tea, coming as it were from loose leaves instead of factory floor sweepings. That is, until the person decided to use so much leaves that when expanded, the bag of tea was about the same size as the cup that I bought….and this was a darjeeling. At least if it were a Taiwanese oolong or some such which expands greatly, it won’t be as much of a problem. Darjeeling, in heavy doses, is deadly. I asked for a large cup half filled with hot water, diluted the tea with basically double the volume of water, and it was STILL too bitter.

Tea education is obviously necessary. Where to start, however, is a real issue. Until then… I should remember to bring my own tea and just ask for hot water.

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Finding tea in Korea

December 27, 2008 · 4 Comments

I don’t know what Toki does, but I remember when I first came here in Korea quite a few years ago, the going was tough.  Finding tea in Korea is not as easy as it seems, given all the teaware that they make.  You do start wondering, after a while, where all the Korean tea is, because they seem few and far between, whereas you can find Korean teaware pretty easily.

For somebody who comes from Hong Kong, where caffeinated tea can be found everywhere and where the default is to wash your food down with a little infused camellia sinensis, Korea can be rough.  I remember when I could get a real cup of tea in a very decent restaurant.  That was in Seoul.  Here in Pusan, it seems like the situation hasn’t changed that much.  Mind you, this is not to say that you can’t find any tea in Korea… you can.  Much of the time, however, they are teabags, and they are only offered if you look for it.  Coffee is the preferred drink here, and finding a regular cup of tea that will scratch that itch when you’re addicted to the stuff is not easy.

There also seem to be those nice tea stores that dot the city, as I’ve passed by a few signs that advertise such establishments while riding a car, but until I’ve got some time to go roam the place, I’ll have to settle with darjeeling teabags.  Why didn’t I bring my own tea?

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Ugh

December 17, 2008 · 2 Comments

My last entry on this blog was December 5th. That’s almost two weeks ago, which is quite scandalous. I have been rather occupied with all sorts of things, not least pretending to try to write my dissertation and to look for (hopeful) employment as a pedagogical device in classrooms. Until then, however, there is much work to be done.

Work aside, however, I am heading to Hong Kong tomorrow for a bit more than a week to see family and such. So hopefully, I will be reporting again from there 🙂

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I hate infuser baskets

August 31, 2008 · 7 Comments

especially the red ones that have a plastic lining.

What I’ve found over the years is that if you go out to a tea shop to drink some tea, in this country anyway, more likely than not they use an infuser basket to brew the tea for you. This makes sense to them — it’s easier to clean up and remove all the tea leaves that were used in the process, and so all they have to do is to rinse the pot and it’s ready to go again. All is well, is it not?

The problem, as I’ve mentioned before, is that these things are very good at soaking up smells and tastes, and that what actually happens is that they start to impart a taste to the tea that is made in them. Yesterday, I went to Tea Time in Palo Alto. It’s a nice little shop with lots of interesting English style teacup and saucer sets for sale. It also has a decent selection of tea, and aside from a few items that seem grossly overpriced, such as a $1 a gram Wuyi yancha of unknown provenance, it offers a nice variety and is not entirely filled by your typical “blackberry currant butterscotch mint vanilla tea”.

I ordered some cheaper Wuyi, as I found them to be generally fairly safe when going to a tea shop I’ve never been to before. I sat down and waited for my tea. When it came out, in an English style pot with a cozy, I figured that I am not going to see the leaves — and I was right. It was pre-brewed, which is ok, except that the tea has a slight hint of something else…. maybe vanilla? Peach? I couldn’t tell, and it can be a mix of both. What it almost certainly is though, is that it is the leftover smell from previous teas, usually flavoured teas, that were brewed in the infuser basket. The flavours that those teas have tend to seep into the infuser… which makes for bad tea for everybody else when it’s brewed weakly, which my Wuyi certainly was.

I wish there were more stores out there that will let you brew your own tea, instead of them brewing for you. I actually don’t really understand that, because it’s more work for them, and I’d imagine it’s easier to just let the customers make their own tea. Perhaps it’s a ploy to get us to buy more, because without giving us the leaves, we can’t refill? Or perhaps it’s a fear that the customers will mess it up? I don’t know, but please…. the infuser baskets have to go. There has to be a better way.

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Weeks old tea

August 25, 2008 · 5 Comments

I went to the Tea Gallery yesterday. Among the many things that Michael, the proprietor of the Tea Gallery, has been experimenting is one scary sounding thing — drinking teas that have been brewing for weeks on end.

I think I am fairly brave sometimes when it comes to tea, but even that, initially, has me feeling rather skeptical. After all, I have tried having forgotten tea in a pot for weeks on end and ended up with nasty, white mouldy tea that smelled sickly sweet and forever screwed up the pot, so the idea of drinking stuff that have been brewing a few weeks is, to say the least, a little alarming.

Yet that’s not really what’s going on. What Michael does is basically brew the tea fresh everyday using new water (and drinking the previous day’s brew). On and on it goes. I have now tried a few teas at different “ages”… from a week to a few weeks. None are mouldy, and all of them, though light, are still drinkable and enjoyable in their own way. Mind you, I think a certain amount of proper processing and what not is probably required, but maybe it’s not as far fetched as it seems…

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Subsistence

August 4, 2008 · 1 Comment

The past two weeks were mostly spent drinking bad tea. Aside from one or two chances to drink decent tea, the rest of it was consumed by travel, last minute planning, etc, and had no time to drink much that’s good. Much black was consumed, and in between, some aged oolongs and some other random teas I had with me. Drinking my way across little teashops was an interesting experience, because talking to some of the owners or shopkeepers, you really get a sense of what people actually order. For example, talking to a person who works at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, I found out that aside from a few people, the vast majority simply order what’s on the “simple” tea menu, which is not surprising, but the end result is that the “better” teas are often not very fresh, and in the case of the Assam which I wanted, was adulterated with the smell of some other herbal stuff and thus brewed a cup that had a strong hint of peach or some other fruit. The people who work there have no clue what an Assam is supposed to taste like (ditto Darjeeling), so they really have no way of telling if anything’s wrong with the tea.

I think it is safe to say that despite the hulabaloo about tea becoming more popular, etc, the “tea” that is really becoming popular is the “RICH IN ANTIOXIDANTS! SLIMMING TEA!!” variety. People drink tea for the perceived health benefits, and unfortunately are probably drinking low grade, pesticide soaked leaves, instead of what might actually be good for them. The few stores I went to that sells decent teas also show the other kind of tea that is popular with your average tea crowd — the “Vanilla butterscotch mint cinnamon rooibus” kind. One store, called Lupicia, has a wonderful looking store with very nice packaging, and basically every flavour you can find under the sun. I think one out of every twenty of their teas was actually unflavoured, and if you are willing to shell out $1 for two grams of tea, you can buy some ok looking Taiwanese oolong, overpriced, to say the least.

What I feel is very much lacking in all this is any sort of real education going on. You can’t fault somebody for selling tea — they have to make a living, after all. It doesn’t mean that we should just leave it at that. I feel that there is often no effort being made to try to show the average consumer what a wonderful drink tea is. It’s not a spiritual thing, it’s not Eastern mysticism, it’s not some hollowed age old tradition — on the most fundamental level, tea is simply a beverage to be consumed and appreciated. Nothing is wrong with flavoured teas, mind you (I drink my occasional Earl Grey), but so much more is out there. Unfortunately, they are either not available, or marketed as some rare, exotic, Oriental, mysterious, or even sacred, with the attendant price tag that goes along with such labels. I am continually amazed at the kind of markup some people get away with simply with a nice back story and pretty salesgirls (or boys, or website). The “Monkey Picked” stuff comes to mind…

Anyway, I’m rambling, so I’m obviously too sleepy to write anything more that’s coherent. Maybe to be continued.

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Tourists

August 2, 2008 · 2 Comments

There was this wonderful looking kama in my room at the hotel we were staying (no, we were not in Japan)

But some people decided to use it as a candle holder

Which is really quite unfortunate, because the kama itself is rather nice. I, for one, won’t mind having one, although the ones shaped like these are almost impossible to use for my kind of tea making. Subsitute it for a tetsubin though….. oh, the endless possibilities.

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Independent teashops

July 23, 2008 · 2 Comments

I find it amazing that independent teashops survive in this country. This is not a friendly place for tea, and for the most part people drink crappy bagged tea. I’ve always wanted to take some pictures of the tea section in a lovely place like a bad supermarket in the midwest…. it really gives you a good idea of what people are imbibing.

That makes it all the more pleasant when you go to a place that at least tries to provide a nice experience drinking tea in a shop, despite all the extra hurdles that they have to go through to get off the ground running. There’s something philosophically attrative about an independent store that survives despite the onslaught of the Starbucks of the world. I guess they’re the modern equivilent of homestead farmers who make it despite the tough conditions of the frontier and establish a foothold in a hostile land (occupied by its rightful owners, at least on this continent).

I went to a place called Tea Chai Te yesterday while having to do some waiting around, and spent a good hour there just sitting and sipping tea while reading a not very good book about green tea. I wonder how independent shops gather the 100 or so teas they offer — I suppose it’s from wholesalers of various ilk, and sometimes directly sourced from whoever it is that sells such things. I ordered the Wuyi Oolong, usually one of the safer choices out there (no varietal specified). The tea was brewed for me and came as liquid only in a Chinese made small tetsubin, enameled lined and all. I suspect it was made in an infuser basket. I got a drinking cup too — some fairly large red glazed thing, which was fairly pretty, although the tetsubin and the cup’s colour meant that I couldn’t judge the tea. The tea was all right — I think the water makes it better here, and there was some throatiness to it. They also served other more esoteric things, including a few puerh, although most of those are mini-tuos that I wouldn’t dare try.

Still, if only they have such stores everywhere I go — unfortunately, that’s not the case here, and in most cities you’d be hard pressed to find even one or two such things. Oh well, at least, I think, things are starting to change.

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