Tea Writings

A blog about tea from the desk of Cecilia Tan
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Chelsea (NYC) T Salon

January 27, 2010 By: ctan Category: Tea Shops

As I type this entry, I am sitting in a tea shop that gives the Samovar Tea Lounge a run for the money when it comes to hippest tea-sipping spot. I’m at the T-Salon in Chelsea Market.

First of all, this is Chelsea Market in New York City. In what was an old meatpacking building, there is now an incredibly hip foodie paradise. Similar to the Terminal Market in San Francisco, only bigger with even more shops and restaurants, Chelsea Market has fine cheese, fresh fish, farm-raised meat, and on and on with the gourmet shops and bakeries. This building also houses MLB.com and the Google NYC offices. Morimoto (the Iron Chef) has a restaurant here. Hip.

It’s so hip that the free wifi comes with the following terms of service:

I promise to refrain from any hanky panky
Or anything that would make anyone get cranky.
Anything I do with this connection that is lame,
I absolve Chelsea Market et al of any blame.

You click a button that says “All righty!” to agree.

But back to the T-Salon. (more…)

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A Rose In Winter

January 23, 2010 By: ctan Category: Tea Musings, Tea Reviews

The time has come for me to either restock the Ten Ren black rose tea I’ve just run out of, or to replace it with something else.

Being an adventurous sort (not to mention a tea blogger…) I’m open to trying some other brands, flavors, and formulations of rose, but a quick look over just my favorite sites, much less the plethora of rose teas reviewed at Steepster (up to 532 from just 519 teas yesterday!!), reveals more choice than my currently overtaxed brain can handle.

So I solicit your suggestions, here, on Steepster, on Twitter, Facebook, and wherever else you may cross my path.

Ten Ren Black Rose Tea: So, the tea I am now out of is sold from huge canisters at the Ten Ren shops all around the world. I bought this batch at the shop in Chinatown NYC and had no idea it was going to become one of my “staple” teas — i.e. a tea I brew at least once a week. (I typically brew 2-3 varieties per day, every day.) As I mention in my tasting note on this tea on Steepster, “This is a reliably delicious tea that holds up to at least 4 steepings, still giving beautiful color and excellent flavor, though milder by the 3rd and 4th time through. It doesn’t hit you over the head with the rose too much, doesn’t muck it up with any other flavors.”

The first thing, of course, is that the black tea itself must be of good quality. Crummy tea hidden by a shot of rose oil is not what I’m looking for, obviously, but I am a big believer in the fact that the most expensive tea isn’t necessarily the best. (more…)

A Rose by Any Other Name

May 19, 2009 By: ctan Category: Tea Reviews

I wrote yesterday about the rose black I bought this weekend at the Ten Ren tea shop in Chinatown NYC. When I arrived home, I found my latest order from Holy Mountain Trading Co. had arrived, too!

Yesterday evening I tried the Dragonfruit and Roses Green, while today I am drinking the Strawberry & Rose Melange Green Tea.
(more…)

Chinatown, Dollars and Scents

May 18, 2009 By: ctan Category: Tea Musings, Tea Reviews

Sunday found me in New York’s Chinatown, where I stopped before heading home after a weekend in the city for both business and pleasure.

This is the Chinatown of my youth, a place my family almost always went when we were in the city for any reason. (That is, after we’d moved to New Jersey from Manhattan when I was around five.) If we had out-of-town guests or family, and had spent the afternoon sightseeing, we would finish the day with dinner in the basement dining room of the Hunan House on Mott Street, or in later years the upstairs eatery of Say Eng Look (“Four Five Six”).

One night we brought my uncle, who was doing post-doctoral work in marine biology at U. of Southern Mississippi, and some of his researcher/grad school friends there, when they were on a road trip from USM to Wood’s Hole in Massachusetts. One of the guys on the trip was from Singapore, and when the waiter brought the hot steamed towels before the meal for our hands, he pushed it into his face and nearly cried. (more…)