So I wander in to a local tea shop on my lunch break. A sales
lady approaches me and asks if she can help me and whether
I've been there before. I haven't. Her eyes light up.
Warning sign #1: We don't get many men in by themselves.
Sigh. She points me to a "smell bar" with lots of numbered tins
with clear plastic tops. There is a laminated tea list that
shows the numbers. This worries me. Every thing is labeled
organic.
Warning sign #2: She tells me that every tea they sell is certified organic and that is important because you don't have to rinse the leaves. "Rinsing the leaves is just throwing away tea!"
She asks what sort of tea do I like. I explain that I mostly
drink pu'erhs, both raw and ripe. She excitedly tell me of their
pu'erh selection. All four entries. None of them are marked raw
or ripe.
Warning sign #3: She tells me aged teas like pu'erh are *so* nice since they don't contain any caffeine.
Warning sign #4: One of the pu'erhs listed rose hips and something that looked like a citrus rind in it. It was flavored shu Another was a 7-10g mini-tuo.
From looking at the pu'erh tins on the "smell bar" I realized that
I likely won't ever be buying pu'erh from them. I already knew
this but was open to changing my mind.
Warning sign #5: The sales lady mistook my grimace of revulsion at the odor of some really skanky shu with fruit peel as interest in flavored teas.
She says that I may like a japanese green with yuzu. I smell
and politely redirect her to the oolongs. I'm pretty sure that
the DHP and "Wulong" tins are swapped because the "Wulong"
(that is all that is on the label). I haven't had a ton of DHP
but it smells quite close to mine and the tin labeled Big Red
Robe smells completely different.
The good news is that she has to tend to another customer
which leaves me free to sniff at random. I find a tea that labeled
Taiwan Jade that smells nice. It is rolled similar to my Nantuo
dong ding but smells less roasted. I grab some of the Taiwan Jade
and some of the generic "Wulong" because I'm brave and curious.
As she rings me out she starts asking more about my tea
experiences and gets a bit nervous. She wasn't aware that I was a
"serious collector". That's odd because I feel like a total idiot when
it comes to tea.
The long shot upside is that the owner occasionally sells these
"heavy discs" of pu'erh to her special clients. Sometimes they buy
these bundles of discs. I explain how the disc is called a beeng and
a group of beeng is a tong. She asks why I didn't buy an of the pu'erh
in the tins. I explain about provenance and the different
manufacturers and mountains. She has no idea about where most of
their tea comes from.
I likely won't be going back, I suppose. If they think I'm a serious
collector or aficionado of some sort then they've never looked at
teachat or spent much time on the internet. I hadn't realized that in
six months I've learned more about tea than many of the folks running
tea houses. That makes me sad.
No wonder Americans don't drink more tea.
I wonder if I should bother trying to educate them a bit. Given US
demand for pu'erh is fairly low I think it may be a waste.
Note: I hand formatted this because I couldn't make it not look terrible given the short nature of the bits. Please bear with me.
lady approaches me and asks if she can help me and whether
I've been there before. I haven't. Her eyes light up.
Warning sign #1: We don't get many men in by themselves.
Sigh. She points me to a "smell bar" with lots of numbered tins
with clear plastic tops. There is a laminated tea list that
shows the numbers. This worries me. Every thing is labeled
organic.
Warning sign #2: She tells me that every tea they sell is certified organic and that is important because you don't have to rinse the leaves. "Rinsing the leaves is just throwing away tea!"
She asks what sort of tea do I like. I explain that I mostly
drink pu'erhs, both raw and ripe. She excitedly tell me of their
pu'erh selection. All four entries. None of them are marked raw
or ripe.
Warning sign #3: She tells me aged teas like pu'erh are *so* nice since they don't contain any caffeine.
Warning sign #4: One of the pu'erhs listed rose hips and something that looked like a citrus rind in it. It was flavored shu
Another was a 7-10g mini-tuo.From looking at the pu'erh tins on the "smell bar" I realized that
I likely won't ever be buying pu'erh from them. I already knew
this but was open to changing my mind.
Warning sign #5: The sales lady mistook my grimace of revulsion at the odor of some really skanky shu with fruit peel as interest in flavored teas.
She says that I may like a japanese green with yuzu. I smell
and politely redirect her to the oolongs. I'm pretty sure that
the DHP and "Wulong" tins are swapped because the "Wulong"
(that is all that is on the label). I haven't had a ton of DHP
but it smells quite close to mine and the tin labeled Big Red
Robe smells completely different.
The good news is that she has to tend to another customer
which leaves me free to sniff at random. I find a tea that labeled
Taiwan Jade that smells nice. It is rolled similar to my Nantuo
dong ding but smells less roasted. I grab some of the Taiwan Jade
and some of the generic "Wulong" because I'm brave and curious.
As she rings me out she starts asking more about my tea
experiences and gets a bit nervous. She wasn't aware that I was a
"serious collector". That's odd because I feel like a total idiot when
it comes to tea.
The long shot upside is that the owner occasionally sells these
"heavy discs" of pu'erh to her special clients. Sometimes they buy
these bundles of discs. I explain how the disc is called a beeng and
a group of beeng is a tong. She asks why I didn't buy an of the pu'erh
in the tins. I explain about provenance and the different
manufacturers and mountains. She has no idea about where most of
their tea comes from.
I likely won't be going back, I suppose. If they think I'm a serious
collector or aficionado of some sort then they've never looked at
teachat or spent much time on the internet. I hadn't realized that in
six months I've learned more about tea than many of the folks running
tea houses. That makes me sad.
No wonder Americans don't drink more tea.
I wonder if I should bother trying to educate them a bit. Given US
demand for pu'erh is fairly low I think it may be a waste.
Note: I hand formatted this because I couldn't make it not look terrible given the short nature of the bits. Please bear with me.
Last edited:
I think this shop might be fine for 80% of American tea drinkers.
