Monday, April 14, 2008
Posted by Miss Neddy at 09:27 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Green Jasmine Tea Related

[Miss Neddy: Today another good friend of mine es el queso has kindly agreed to do an entry for me, about his trip to San Fransisco’s Chinatown. He also runs a very interesting blog What I Had For Dinner Tonight. Check it out!]

I was in San Francisco’s Chinatown today, as part of a friend’s pubcrawl/gift exchange, I was on a bit of another mission, however, looking for some good tea and an infuser mug to use so I could brew less tea and re-infuse it, something alien to the American disposable teabag mentality.

We started our day with dim sum at a place called the Four Seasons, where we sampled all kinds of shumai and dumplings and pot stickers. We then moved on to a series of bars, and drew names and bought three gifts for under $10 from the touristy shops around the bars while most people drank a healthy amount.

Miss Neddy had suggested TenRen as a reliable place to get decent tea, I had been many years before, but not recently. The front half of the shop now sells bubble tea, which I avoided. I went straight to the back where there are shelves filled with bright brass canisters full of tea. She also suggested I try the rose green tea if I was to go, so that is what I asked for first. It was very pretty and had a magnificent floral scent, so I had the nice woman serving me pack some up. She then went right for what I wanted, the jasmine pearls, I’m still not enough of a connoisseur to really know if it was fresh and top-grade, but the color looked good to me, and the sent was magnificent. I probably bought more than I should have, but I really do enjoy it.

I looked around at their tea sets and cups and didn’t see anything that really inspired me. So I went up the street to a slightly more modern looking tea shop called Vital Tealeaf, where my friend and I got roped into a tourist-special tea tasting.... which was free, so we went along with it. We sampled a lovely earthy pu’erh, a wulong that was almost as nice as the one I get from http://www.yixingxuan-teahouse.com/ [Miss Neddy: This is the Yixing Xuan Teahouse’s website, the teahouse in Singapore that I frequent] ), and one that was called Monkey Picked, although the tea server allowed that the tea was no longer picked by the monkeys. It was actually fun, and interesting, although he insulted the jasmine tea I had just bought, when my friend said it was her favorite; he likened it to considering Budweiser a good beer.

Nevertheless, at the back of the shop, there was just the mug / infuser I had been looking for… so I ended up actually buying two. I still haven’t found a new teapot, but all my friends marveled at how small and delicate the standard Chinese teapot was compared to what we were used to. All in all, it was a fun summer-like day, and my tea supply has been restocked!

My spoils from Chinatown- 2 infuser mugs from Vital Tea and some jasmine tea and green rose tea from Ten Ren.	The Transamerica tower, as seen from Red's Place, a bar in Chinatown.
Some of the tea sets available for sale at TenRen.	The spread of canisters of tea at TenRen.
Some fancy teapots (for tourists i think?) in another shop window.

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