I Miss Chinese Tea Shops

Since coming to the States I've really missed Chinese tea shops because when my wife and I moved to the States we had to give up a lot of our loose tea stash that we had accumulated over many China trips (some we got from Chinese tea shops and others from pillaging my in law's stash). Anyways there was a lot that my sister inherited from us :).

The best way to describe a Chinese tea shop is to think of a place like Starbucks (except serves nothing but tea) and then imagine that the Baristas are there to help you sample teas (you end up drinking a lot of free tea), and when you find the particular flavor of tea you are looking for you buy a couple pounds.

Chinese tea shops are also cool in that they sometimes have neat tea tables made out of stumps of trees carved into dragons or phoenixes. All the Chinese tea shops I have been to have fun rituals for when they are preparing the tea samples. For example when the tea is cleaned they will usually pour the wasted tea over a tea pet or a money frog. Also they have special tea sets they use for serving the tea.

Last month we finally found some decent "High Mountain" Oolong (I am not sure that it is High Mountain Oolong but it is definitely Oolong) tea at a Chinese grocery store. For a while I was getting worried that the meager stash of tea would run out before we found some replacements. I was teaing out man.

I would really like to get my hands on some Taiwanese Oolong (by far the best Chinese tea I have ever had). Cloud Mist tea from Mount Lushan comes very close to Taiwanese Oolong though :p.

I didn't really get into teas until I met my wife's parents. They are really into tea. Whenever I go to my in law's place they always have good tea ready to serve. My father in law is always like "Hey, Kevin try this out" and my mother in law always sets up serious discussions over tea :) And after a while Chinese tea really grew on me to the point that I just can't go back to English teas or bagged teas that I grew up on (shrug).