New shop find: Leaf & Kettle

Found another great tea shop, drank some more superb teas — this time north of San Diego in Del Mar, Calif. The local tea-meetup gathered at Leaf & Kettle to learn about this excellent independent shop and to sample some of their offerings. It was one of those nights when the social chemistry sparked a bit (unusual for meetups), the shop impressed, and the tea absolutely wowed.

Leaf & Kettle has been open in a fancy outdoor mall for a couple of years. It's a classic, simple shop built around a tea bar, behind which are a few dozen stainless steel urns full of teas. Their alluring inventory is available online.

Jenna, the manager, poured three teas for our group. First, the organic Kagoshima Sencha, an aromatic spring green from Japan. The first cup was typically vegetal, even grassy (in that good Sencha way). The surprise was the second cup, produced with a counterintuitive shorter steep, which produced more bang for the buck, as it were. One of those teas that seems so light but really packs a wallop.

Next was the stunner: their Hunan Honey Black. Dry, it smells like brandy and freshly baked honey buns. In the cup, it's a rich black tea with a dessert finish — not uncomfortably sweet, not at all off-putting — tasting of chocolate-covered graham cookies. I say that with some irony, because those exact treats were on our table; this tasting note, however, was jotted down before eating one, which I did while enjoying the second steep (which really brought the unsweetened cacao flavor to the fore). The pairing was supreme.

The closer was a tea cocktail of sorts: she mixed an oolong and a fruit herbal (she also added some sliced fresh strawberries) over ice in a cocktail shaker, shook, and poured into glasses with ice and fresh mint sprigs. Very tasty, smooth, refreshing — if you go for the iced stuff. We asked for a second steep of the oolong by itself, Formosa Silk, which was an earthy delight — milky, buttery, a hint of sauteed mushrooms maybe. Had to buy some of that, eager to pair it with dinner.

It is a wonderful feeling, particularly after relocating to a new city, to find that tea shop that connects, that seems to offer just what your palette craves. Leaf & Kettle, hurrah, does so without the come-on of so many tea start-ups. Just a smart, classy joint.

Tuesday tea TV: Irani teahouses

Interesting short documentary here: a look into some tea cafes in Iran. They're called coffee houses, but they don't serve coffee. Dig all the stunning urns and samovars!



"In Iran, taking a break without a hot cup of black tea would be meaningless." See, not so different.

New campus, new teas

No doubt you're like me — the first order of business upon relocating to a new workplace or school is to evaluate the available and nearby tea options. It took some doing, to my surprise, upon relocating to UC-San Diego. My previous campus, the Univ. of Illinois at Chicago, had a decent coffee stand next door to my office building, with loose-leaf tea options. It wasn't great quality, but it was at least loose-leaf and served with a modicum of care.

Now at UCSD I finally found (among the campus's plethora of coffee stands, noodle shacks, and even bars) the Muir Woods Coffee House. Basement location: awesome. Prices: lowest on campus (just a buck for a tall tea if you bring your own reusable mug). Loose-leaf teas: pretty great. Their main supplier is a tea joint in downtown SD, Cafe Virtuoso, with a fair stock of estate-grown picks. The English Breakfast is superb, with a fresh floral note that contributes to one's waking. Life-saving and life-enriching on beautiful SoCal winter mornings like this one ...

We like Siamese tea if you please

Here's a delightful and warm scene for your wintry blues — made by an illustrator named Francesca Buchko, who describes her inspiration here as being the two tea-drinking cats at the Verdant Tea shop in Minneapolis. A lovely story there, and the more I gaze at this piece the more I love it.

Dig her site with loads of similarly charming work.

Strip-teas

London's Daily Mail recently published a piece about the city's Volupte Lounge, which offers afternoon tea amid a burlesque show. They write: "Dancers dressed in traditional 1920s style corseted costumes perform while you enjoy your tea, teasing with the seductive style of dance which involves slowly stripping off items of clothing."

Here's my report from visiting the place a few years ago. I'm rather amazed they're still doing this, though I recall the place being packed to the rafters with, of all customers, bridal parties.

Look at the birds up in the trees!

Saw this over at fair-trade-minded shop Ten Thousand Villages: a beautiful tea tray hand-painted by Peruvian artists. Birds in the tree, sunny warm colors, all on reverse-painted glass. Stylish, handy.

Natural look, natural feel

New favorite home-decor source: Leif, a supplier of artistic living accessories and tabletop pieces hewn from natural materials and designed to look that way.

Dig these cups — this one (pictured) is called Brushed Snow and is made in Japan. Other cups in this same shape are wrapped with wood grain, or real cedar for the sake cups. They also have some beautiful, ghostly glazed tea bowls. Best part: great prices.

The Queen likes Fortnum & Mason, so will you

Queen Elizabeth, Camilla and Kate caused a stir this week when they visited London department store Fortnum & Mason.

Unfortunately, there seem to be no photos of the trio actually having tea. Allegedly, they did so "with some of the store's staff, suppliers and former employees." F&M's renovated restaurant now has been renamed the Diamond Jubilee Tea Station to mark the queen's 60 years on the throne.

I note the occasion only to trumpet Fortnum & Mason one more time. I visited there a couple of years ago on a tea junket. Their Grey Dragon Oolong is still one of my favorites, and the store is a delightful shopping experience, especially compared to the tourist insanity of Harrod's.

Smashing Pumpkins leader opening tea house

Billy Corgan continues to lead the Smashing Pumpkins -- their recent Chicago visit made my list of best '11 concerts -- but he's diversifying. In addition to launching his own pro wrestling group (auditions coming up Jan. 12, for those who want to get their pile driving on), Corgan this week announced he's opening a "1930s Chinese-style tea house" in a suburb north of Chicago.

As the Sun-Times reports, Corgan's a partner in the business and apparently the one selecting the teas. "The tea menu will tout flavors and aromas from around the world, from greens to organics and exotics," according to the report.

"It's a little bit of a salon vibe, not modern at all. Very old school," Corgan told another site. "What we're going for is that Chinese-French style."

Fellow bald-pate musician Moby partnered in a tea house, TeaNY, nearly a decade ago. It reopened last year after a small fire.

Why, yes, I did!

Sign at my neighborhood coffee and tea house this morning.

Links: Wolverine! Old folks! Argo Tea! Energy!

Some recent tea news links ...

— The UK doesn't have its own branch of America's new Tea Party, but one city council has had to cool off a brewing controversy over tea and budget cutting. According to this story, the Liberal Democrats in East Sussex demanded that the complimentary tea and cookies served at council meetings be scrapped because of the 600-pound annual expense. That got some residents boiling mad.

— It's highly likely that the people in the above story are all old, because Britons under 25 don't care so much about tea anymore.

— Actor Hugh Jackman has opened his own shop, the Laughing Man Coffee & Tea, in New York City. Proceeds from the shop benefit his Laughing Man charity.

— The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel published a good feature about the Bigelow tea plantation in South Carolina, including great photos and some intriguing recipes.

— And Time magazine profiled Chicago-based business Argo Tea!

— And this is not specifically tea-related, but here's an inspiring article from Tiny Buddha about "How to Accomplish Anything (by) Leveraging Collective Energy." A few salient points on this list got me through midterms. Word.

A fine excuse to enjoy espresso again

Today is National Coffee Day, and I'm not a bigot. I have catholic tastes. I am large, I consume multitudes. This afternoon, I did something I haven't done within my searchable memory: I drank some coffee.

Once upon a time, this wasn't so unusual. Coffee was my first stimulant as a young fool. Many a Sunday mornin' have come down with a cup o' joe. I enjoy coffee with dessert, especially. The bitter vs. sweet — happy warfare for the territory of my tongue.

I made a bean-line to Stella, a shop in my 'hood where I often retreat for afternoon laptop labors. They have a decent tea selection, and they know how to steep. But everyone else comes for the espresso, and if I'm going to join them for coffee then I want to taste coffee. Also, why volumize the experience with more water and milk? I ordered a shot.

Anything served in tiny glasses has my attention. I have racks of cordials here at home for the port, the sherry, the grappa, the homemade limoncello, and there are a couple of wee stemmed shot glasses in the freezer with the aquavit. Would that tea could be concentrated down to such a form — though I actually enjoyed some matcha once in a Los Angeles tea shop that billed it as "green tea espresso."

I'd forgotten two things about real espresso. One, the joy of crema. No dairy products required, just expert preparation to deliver that little cap of textural bliss on top. Second, the jagged experience of caffeine without tea's theanine. What a trip — the imbalance, the rush of yin, the feeling of being all jacked up and nowhere to flow. My body was alive, but my mind was still weary. No fair.

The Boulder and the beautiful teahouse

A friend and colleague, Mark G., drove into the Rocky Mountains for the first time in his life this week. On his way through Boulder, Colo., he followed my recommendation to revive himself at the Dushanbe Teahouse.

Just because it's such a beautiful place, here are some of the photos he sent to taunt me about where he was, while I was at work ...







Thanks, Mark. Ya bastard.

Green beans: 'The coffee trust'

I've walked by the Kukulu Market ("Ethiopian Specialties!") in my neighborhood a hundred times, and I've always been intrigued by a sign in the window boasting "Ethiopian green coffee." As a tea person, I thought this must be something similar — slightly less produced, or less roasted. Maybe it's actual green coffee beans fresh off the bush ground up and filtered!

Sort of. I finally stopped in this week. Inside the tiny shop, the owner showed me Ziploc baggies of green coffee beans — dusty-green beans with that tell-tale seam down the flat side — as well as a large wicker basket full of them, plus a big scoop. They're just beans that haven't been roasted yet.

"So why buy unroasted beans?" I asked.

"So you can roast them yourself." Then he said something I love: "For some people, it's about finding the coffee trust, finding the spirit of the bean that speaks to them."

Which Folgers, no doubt, or even Starbucks, is not concerned with.

It's a control issue — and price, the green beans are significantly cheaper — so that consumers can roast the coffee to their taste. Like a light roast? Pull them off the heat when you want. Like it dark? Bake those babies!

Many customers, the owner explained, roast the beans at home, just using a pot on the stove (stirring often). There is, of course, plenty of home equipment to purchase, as well, and many different types of green coffee.

(I was also unaware that, just as there are tea ceremonies, there is an Ethiopian coffee ceremony.)

I couldn't help wish tea was available in this state — leaves fresh off the plucking table, available for pan frying at home. I suppose it is available this way if you live next door to the plantation.

The return of the East India Company (yes, that one)

The East India Company lives again — and, get this, it's now Indian-owned.

The ultimate symbol of British imperialism and capitalist extremes, with an impressive history, the East India Co. was dissolved more than a century ago. But Mumbai-born Sanjiv Mehta opened a fine-foods shop last summer in London using the famous name, to which he'd acquired the official rights and trademarks (even the coat of arms). While the new East India Co. has no plans to dominate global trade again, it is offering — how could it not? — a sizable array of teas.

I've tasted one, and it's pretty extraordinary. Though I enjoy a quality Earl Grey on rare occasions, I've never found citrus flavors very complementary to black tea. (If you do, check out this run-down of citrus and tea.) East India offers a really pleasant alternative: a mango tea. Many brands offer mango teas (Adagio's is good), and East India's ranks high among them. To a surprisingly strong black tea is added dried mango fruit and mango oil, rounding out a remarkably full-bodied tropical flavor without becoming cloying or gimmicky. It doesn't strut through the door as a boorish Flavored Tea, you know? I've really enjoyed this, and I can't wait to ice it this summer.

Pictures of the shop and information about some of their other teas — from a Jane Pettigrew tea tasting there — can be found here.

Seeking SXSW asylum at Austin's Tea Embassy

Back from last week's SXSW music mayhem in Austin, Texas (read my findings here). The best part about the whole trip was the weather, cloudy and in the 70s most of the time, my favorite. They're talking snow flurries here in Chicago tonight. Eliot had it wrong: March is the cruelest month.

Visited a capital tea shop in Austin: the Tea Embassy. In a small, historic home on the northwest edge of downtown, the Tea Embassy enjoys a naturally cozy configuration. One front room is a shop with tea and teaware; another front room is a simply but smartly furnished sitting room; beyond that is a room with cafe tables; next to that is the tasting counter and the wall of tea tins. I couldn't help but linger, not only because I was weary from hiking between SXSW shows but because one of the "tea mabassadors," Tim, was nice enough to chat about tea while I revived myself with a sample of a simple but sturdy Bi Luo Chun.





The Tea Embassy is the first place I've found teas from Georgia (country, not state). They've got three: Georgian Caravan (too Lapsang-smoky for me), Georgian Beauty and Georgian Village ("from Nagobilevi, a Georgian village set up in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains near the Black Sea"). I bought some of the latter; it's the first tea of 2011 that's challenged my taste buds, offering the expected solidity of an artisan black tea but with some surprises my brain is still computing (citrus? no, banana? maybe graham cracker? definitely honey).

They also boast an unusually large Rooibos menu, for those who dig the other bush.

Our Nada: A clean, well-lighted place

Splendid new teahouse discovery, via the Chicago Tea Lovers Meetup group!

Nada Tea & Coffee House is one of those places I've been meaning to visit for a couple of years, and the Meetup group finally gave me the excuse/opportunity to head in that direction. What a splendid afternoon we had — not just because we were chatty and warm as the wind howled and the snow swirled outside. Nada's the real deal, a narrow spot neatly paneled in bamboo (the place is smoothly designed by renowned architect Douglas Garofalo) and offering a fine menu of Japanese teas and some food.

What grabbed me right away was when I saw co-owner Hiro behind the counter whipping up a bowl of matcha. No matcha-flavored beverages, no pre-made matcha — just quality powder frothed with a bamboo whisk by a well-trained fellow from Japan. Hallelujah. They offer a few twists on this preparation, too — in a mug with whipped cream, Matcha Viennese, etc. — but nothing outlandish.



Tea samplers presented some simple, quality teas, and I had a superb hojicha, which was a perfect mate to the Oyakodon rice bowl. Others enjoyed some wonderful looking traditional soups, with plump udon noodles, and sandwiches. I took home a couple of scones: meh.

The joy of the place was in its simplicity and quality. It's just a good teahouse. The name says "tea & coffee," but I can't imagine who'd come in here for coffee.

"Nada," by the way, does not mean "nothing" here as it does in Spanish, we learned (so forgive my Hemingway allusion in the title of this post). The teahouse is named for a district in the city of Kobe famous for its sake.

Darjeeling in Des Moines? This is getting good

This is a photo, believe it or not, of an epiphany. We write our little tea blogs and we hang out with tea people and we get on a first-name basis at a shop or two or ten. Like any niche, it's easy to forget this isn't really a treehouse, a club, a benefit exclusive to those of us with even a smidge of knowledge, feigned or hard-earned. But here I was, in a really nice tea shop in, of all places, Des Moines. This guy — in the sweatshirt for his drywall business, complete with Christian fish logo — flips through the menu with his wife and talks brewing temperatures with the gal behind the counter. I expected only Lipton bags during my first of many future visits to this town (relocated relatives), certainly not a great shop with what looks to be finely sourced teas sought after by burly Iowans in caulk-covered boots. I stood there for a moment and realized just how widely tea must be getting around, that the marketing articles aren't just being optimistic. They've even opened a Teavana or two in my Oklahoma home town. It made me really happy, and really excited.

The shop, Gong Fu Tea, has been in Des Moines' East Village neighborhood for more than six years, no less. A few minimalist tables up front, a nice long service counter in the middle, and some teaware and tasting tables in the back where customers can schedule gaiwan and gongfu services. This display of tea jars runs along the wall ...



The owners, Mike Feller and Rusty Bishop, have sourced some good teas, available online (they also have a monthly tea club). I left with several, including a pretty marvelous hojicha — golden-brown and toasty and awesome with some noodles and peanut sauce earlier this week. (Feller contributed comments to this story in a recent Des Moines Register.)

Great tea is almost everywhere! Long live the cha!

Tasting teas 'exported' from China, India shops

I haven't been to the tea lands yet, but my friends have. In fact, somehow I stumbled into this tea karma: I have one friend who makes semi-regular excursions to India, and another who travels occasionally all over China. Both recently sent me some teas they bought in each locale. Here's a run-down of a few wonderful teas we Yanks don't get to taste that often:

China

First, there's Brad. Good ol' Brad. I could tell you some stories about Brad. I'll keep it to this pertinent one, however. In fact, I'll let him tell it. He wrote:

I was in Beijing and went to an official Tea Store run by the government. It was a great experience, albeit a sales call. They went through a bunch of teas, how to make it and how to drink it as well as their "health benefits." I love the fermented ginseng oolong. Probably my favorite. ... They also had a great story on how the lychee tea was developed for a "princess" in Beijing. She loved lychees and the emperor would have them carted in fresh from the south everyday. But in the winter she couldn't get them, so the scientists of the time figure out how to ferment the lychee juice with tea so she could still enjoy the flavor, stay happy and in turn keep the emperor happy. All in all, I probably tried 8 different teas over a couple hours with a good story on each of them.

The ginseng oolong he mentions is one strange tea. It looks like the droppings of a rodent that lives on a diet of very green grass. Each leaf seems rolled up and fermented on its own, resulting in dusky green pellets. Pouring a spoonful into the pot sounds like you're adding kibble for the dog. As they steep, they don't unravel. They make a nice light-green brew with a dry, dusty scent, but they remain little pellets at the bottom of the pot.

Flavorwise, the ginseng oolong gets even weirder — but not unpleasant. It's naturally sweet — very sweet — with a round, herbal taste, not unlike chamomile. I only found the ginseng in the scent, though the tea seems fairly energizing. A wild one.

The lychee black he sent is another eye-opener. The rosy scent of the lychee fruit charges out of the pot and cup; I mean, it really comes after you. It's perfumey, like Tea Rose, though despite its bold introduction it doesn't hog the cup. The black tea has its own brass, presenting flavors of raisins and rose hips. A beautiful caramel color, too.

India

Denise, Denise, sender of postcards, inhaler of grapes. Denise spent a year in India some time ago doing mission work — the real kind, the get down into amazing levels of poverty kind — and goes back once in a while. Dolly's Tea Shop is something of a word-of-mouth institution in Calcutta, an apparently splendid shop overseen by Dolly Roy, a woman who knows a lot about tea. (Read about her here and here.)

Some of Denise's photos from Dolly's ...





Denise sent more of Dolly's delicious Darjeelings, including a "Muscatel Clonal" that's pretty superb. This time of year, I'm hardly ever drinking the champagne of teas, and its trademark musk is a rushing sense memory.

The real surprise was a shiny, silver mylar bag makred from Balmer Lawrie & Co., with a label that read only, "Contents: Tea." The company's website makes it sound like a dreadful, gigantic government food factory. The tea, though, might be my favorite of this particular batch. It smells exactly like ... fresh peanut butter! The brew is a walnut color, the flavor is a little nutty; it's got a tang to it, like a Darjeeling. Whatever the style or blend, it's crazy tasty.

Not knocking Knoxville for tea treasures

My, we've done a lot of traveling this year, and still more to come. Last week we found ourselves in eastern Tennessee — a family reunion, of sorts, and yes Dollywood was involved! — and the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains. While killing time waiting for someone else's flight one rainy afternoon in Knoxville, I Google Mapped "tea" and discovered (thank you, tea gods) that we were very near someplace called Tea & Treasures. I believe the route we took can be described as a beeline. Or a tealine?



Tea & Treasures is a typical Southern shop, a converted old house — as its brochure says, "located under the magnolias at the corner or Martin Mill Pike and Keeble Avenue" — full of what my mother would describe as "antiquey crap." The tea part of the Tea & Treasures equation is misleading and disappointing — a small table by the stairs with a tureen of hot water and some Harney & Sons packets in a styrofoam cup. Some treasures, however, can be had. Bypass the ticky-tacky from local "artists" (though one woman does make a cute array of hand-painted tea cups, and I almost bought one painted like wood on a saucer painted with red autumn leaves) and head for the piles of junk china and old teaware. Among these, I found my favorite new teapot for an absolute steal ...



It's a beautiful, deep pink glaze, with a matching ceramic tray and one tiny cup, and it's weighty and large, holding several cups. Just thought I'd share my find!