Finding a tea shop near you

I've been doing Quora answers lately, and a question brought up a good point:  how do you find a good physical tea shop nearby?  Actually it related to one near Gainesville, Florida, but the same answer works more generally.  I'll cite that Quora answer here, and there might not be much need to say more than I did there about a shop search:

Where is a good place to get loose leaf tea in Gainesville, FL?

I have no background with Florida at all (except for visiting Disney World as a child) but this is a good chance to answer the more general question. The short answer: there are great options to buy tea online, and you would get the best teas in a wider range of types at the best value there. Leaving that aside let’s consider how to find local shops.

It goes without saying Google search would work, doesn't it, or some form of yellow pages review, online or the paper version, if those still exist.  Another good starting point is Google Maps, because it’s easy, and something right outside the range of your search term range might turn up (in the greater metro area, or next small town over).  Oddly nothing looked promising to me, for better tea, but that can happen. No need to take my word for it; you can look at Maps results for “tea Gainesville FL” yourself.

I checked what Maps shows for our Chinatown too (in Bangkok):

That's just sad; one cafe, when there are tea shops all over the place.  Jip Eu is my favorite, and Sen Xing Fa is fine for other range (both starred), and there are lost of others.  I did the same search using the Thai character for tea, "cha" (ชา) and that didn't work either.  I guess this is why Google search might not be enough.

Next you can check specific “tea map” resources. I only know of two, and there may be others, but those aren’t a bad place to start. They’re on tea-themed sites, Steepster and Tea Chat. The content at both sites tends to be dated, and it seems unlikely that if a new shop went in over the last 2 to 4 years (when tea interest sort of ramped up) that those references would have been updated. 

Steepster’s link and local shops map:   Tea Rooms near gainesville florida

A lot turns up but at a glance that doesn’t look very promising to me, again guessing from the business names.  A closer review would confirm if my intuition is right, if those are instead probably ok places to pick up a bubble tea, conventional English Breakfast tea, or maybe even a tea and flowers blend, and scones, which aren’t interesting to me.  Scones can be nice but there are bakeries for that sort of thing.

To me this represents two strikes so far. There must be lots of ways to network to the information about local options, and you only need to talk to one right person for them to lay it all out for you, but I’ll only cover one more approach: search Facebook tea groups for leads.

I searched in Tea Drinker’s (one of my favorite FB tea groups, but the one I’m an admin for is International Tea Talk) and turned up just that:

Tea Drinkers  posted by Tom Wood, 10 January: 

Tea enthusiasts-Once again I am holding my 11th Butterfly Tea on my farm near Gainesville, Florida; February 17 from 10 AM to 4PM. My wild plum trees will be blooming and attracting butterflies. I will be serving at least 20 kinds of tea from China, India and elsewhere and displaying teapots, teaware, and tea books. There is no charge for this event…

That person posting the Quora question just missed that event, by less than a month, but Tom Wood knows all about the local tea scene, for sure, and may hold another event later.

As far as looking around different places for where discussions might have occurred there are other FB tea groups, or you could do a discussion section subject search on Steepster or Tea Chat (those sites I mentioned), or the Reddit tea subforum gets a lot of discussion traffic.  I'm an admin for an International themed group, International Tea Talk, a good place to ask about options outside the US, or about producers, and this Gong Fu Cha tea group is for people a little further along the path than most groups, mostly focused on the US.  Area-specific groups are nice, since they'd mention event options, and I'm in one for NYC, Los Angeles, and for Colorado.


The only Reddit discussion that came up said Volta is ok, and I suppose maybe it is:

Tea in Gainesville, FL? • r/tea

It seemed it wouldn’t be from that title, on the Maps and Steepster results as "Volta Coffee, Tea and Chocolate," but also selling two other things isn’t necessarily a bad sign.

Additional references:

Since I am using this for a blog post I went back to check Tea Chat's Tea Map section, to see how it compared (something I only mentioned as an option in that answer):  

Scrolling down it also pulled up one more option, Tea With Lee TEA WITH LEE  (at 944 E Silver Springs Blvd, Ocala, FL; I'm not sure how close that would be).

I might be too quick to judge that all these tea room options don't offer good loose tea; they really could.  If you click on the reviews there in the Tea Map section they don't mention the teas at all, only scones and such, which I don't take as a good sign, but it's hard to interpret.

Obviously a reference like Yelp could also work (the link to the Gainesville results), but the results seem to repeat the earlier ones.  That might work to untangle what places really sell, for example to check if "Kung Fu Tea" is really a Gong Fu brewing oriented place or not (seems not, from the reviews):

Kung fu tea has the hands down best boba tea in Gainesville. I've lived in Taiwan and watched the development of boba tea grow there into an international export. This place is the closest to authentic boba tea you can get.  Other places in Gainesville, its so artificial and the tea is just so unnaturally bitter. Here, I can actually taste the tea. 

So for bubble / boba / Taiwanese milk tea this is the place; good to know.  Trip Advisor would be roughly the same sort of resource as that, also tilted towards cafes over loose tea shops (their results for Gainesville; more of the same).

Reddit's tea subforum also has a Google based tea map; I hadn't realized that when I first posted this.  There aren't that many shops on it, and only one for all of South East Asia.  That would really be the key to any one reference being useful, including a lot of locations and staying up to date.  The format looks really good though, very well thought through.

I can only think of one more trick:  if you could turn up a local tea blog then that person would have done all that sort of work for you, putting way too much thought an effort into researching tea source options and teas.  Google search for "Gainesville tea blog" would probably find one (and I checked; it didn't, really).  

If some local blogger's page was only being read by a few friends and their Mom they would be way back in the search results, probably further than I looked.

Online shopping is really the best resource anyway, and it's nice that the options are as leveled as they are everywhere related to that.  But it is great to stop into a loose tea shop and talk to a knowledgeable staff, and try teas before you buy them, or attend a tasting, and to support local businesses so the options stick around.  It's not really related but I will add a little about online sourcing here.

Completely off the subject; buying tea online

Buying tea online instead of in a local shop is a different subject, but a good option. I wrote a post about some of my favorite online resources not so long ago, but keep in mind I live in Asia (in Thailand), so I’m talking about more direct sourcing in that, how to order from places like China. That sounds like the shipping would be way too high, but not so much, since the tea prices tend to be much lower to offset that.

Note that I'm not saying US based vendors (or vendors in other countries) are generally a bad option; obviously there will be a wide range of better and worse options for tea quality, selection, and value related to domestic options.


That reference, more focused on Asian-based sources:  More direct tea producer sourcing


I'd expect three of the better options I mention in that post would be Yunnan Sourcing,  Farmerleaf, and Hatvala (who offer free worldwide shipping on orders over $30).  Hatvala sells fantastic Vietnamese teas at prices that are really a little too low (probably as well not to mention that to them).  Both those other two sell samples, which isn't a bad way to get started, when new to tea, it's just as well to bear in mind what the per-gram cost for those is, to make sure it still makes sense.  If Hatvala is selling a version of tea for $4-5 for 50 grams or you might also order a comparable tea as a 10 gram sample from another vendor for $3 that shouldn't take much thinking through.  Quality dictates what a tea should cost, and it's hard to only say a little about that; once you actually try the teas you know where that stands.

All three of those vendors would end up selling tea for less than most US online vendors, as long as you bought tea in sufficient volume range, probably at break-even or a better deal when buying around $30 worth.  To be clear on context, I'm probably seeing Farmerleaf as a better than average resource partly because I happen to like Yunnan style teas, pu'ers (sheng and shou), and also Yunnan black teas (Dian Hong).  It does also help that the teas I've tried from them seem to all be of very good quality (which is also true of Hatvala).

Yunnan Sourcing (which doesn't require any description for people well-exposed to tea sources) sells a little of everything for Chinese tea, and a lot for pu'er, so although it might take more judgement and sorting to figure out what's going on a full range of options are there.  One downside:  they sell everything, instead of curating, so all of it might not be great tea.  In the last order I placed I loved three of the teas, disliked one, and was on the fence about another.  The Liu Bao (a hei cha) was really musty from wet storage, so that wasn't just a preference issue, and that Dan Cong black tea was just ok, a bit tart for my taste, so that was just a subjective preference issue.

A second tangent:  other tea related Quora answers

I'll mention a few, since I've been into that for a year or so now too.  I'm also converting one on why not to boil water for tea in a microwave to a post (it's a draft now) so I'll just mention a few others that seem to stand out.  You'd be right if you thought I'm taking this tea discussion, research, and writing hobby a bit far.

What is the history of tea?

Where can I get the highest grade of white tea at a reasonable price?

What kind of tea is typically served at Chinese restaurants? Why is that tea served?

Why do many (apparently) expert tea drinkers throw out their first infusion without drinking it?

Does tea act like a diuretic?

Does tea have as much caffeine as coffee?

What does oolong tea taste like?

What is the difference between oxidation and fermentation in tea manufacturing?

How do I prepare chai?

What should original Thai iced tea taste like?

Pre-travel blogging: off to Russia soon

the Kremlin!  (photo credit)

It seems odd writing about travel before traveling.  I've done it before, related to an online search for sources of tea (planning to visit both Korea and Japan), as much about ways one might approach that as to the references.  Since that's been 2 1/2 years I forgot how similar this current draft is to that post; it's a bit redundant, really.

aurora forecast (credit this space weather site)

The background:  we'll visit Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Murmansk, starting next week.  Of course I don't plan to even consider tea shopping up at the edge of the Arctic circle.



As an online friend mentioned it would be helpful to have shops you want to visit "starred" in Maps before the trip, but how to go about finding those places?  Google search "tea," obviously, but beyond that there are interesting and indirect ways to look for leads.  Ill go through some options in this post. 



First I'll point out the obvious:  I'm not going to Russia mostly to check out tea.  It was my wife's idea to go there to see the aurora borealis (northern lights) and she thinks that Russian culture would be interesting.  I think so too; both should be amazing.  Ever since that unfortunate Cold War it has seemed like an interesting place.  I won't do much with a tea theme there but that didn't stop me from looking into the subject over the last few weeks. 

Google / Google Maps

Since the idea was to talk to people, and beating the bushes was part of the intent, the early round of looking into tea shops leads didn't include this.  Of course it works, and standard Google-search alternatives like the Moychay shops get mentioned that way too.  It's just not as easy to click around and tell what individual shops and products are like as it is to hear that from someone.  At best a link-listing of "best tea shops" might turn up and then you could almost stop there (just add those to Maps as stars, since things can get a bit hectic "on the ground" during vacations).

Language can be a problem, in some countries, and English search won't work very well, or Maps labeling based in English.  I'm not sure how that plays out in Russia; they don't speak a lot of English, per my understanding, but one would expect them to expect English-speaking tourists.

a shop and some starred search in Moscow

the "tea" search results from Maps in St. Petersburg; a decent start

Tea group contacts

I asked around in a FB group I'm an admin for, International Tea Talk.  This wouldn't be a natural second level to try for everyone, but since I'm into tea groups it was.  Really just asking in a couple isn't enough; using search functions makes sense to catch if someone asked the same thing in the past.  That could run a little long, to do in very many places, but then someone could also spend a day paging around leads from Google search if they really wanted to.  A chance contact turned up the Tea Magic Shop vendor, and Sergey (the owner) seems nice.  If someone on your FB friends list is a Russian who is into tea that could shorten the process, and one of two Russian tea vendors I know was really helpful.

Related to getting help online, I go back and forth over how much to credit or mention people who pass on input in these blog posts.  Since checking on their preference is problematic I usually only reference online (public) statements, or ask permission when an idea or discussion quote is very useful.

that coldest temperature is only -5 F; no problem

Trip Advisor, Expat forums

Trip Advisor is great for looking up hotels or lists of attractions, but there's a travel themed forum that can also be very helpful.  Forum participants might blame you for not using a search function if the same question tends to come up often, or for not looking at the FAQ section, but you can still just type it out anyway.  In online groups and that site I just tune out questions like "what should I see in Bangkok?," unless I feel like adding something.  The short version about Bangkok:  temples are cool here, and Thai food can be nice.

Asking in the Trip Advisor forum worked; people with varying interests in tea made good suggestions.  I tried in an Expat forum and it didn't work, really.  If wasting time at it is of interest someone could look up and ask in a dozen different FB groups and various expat forums, and eventually the right person might see a post.  Of course checking again and again on all that would be tedious, and who knows which of those would or wouldn't use alerts to help support that.

One thing became clear in that discussion, even based on only limited input:  Russians don't drink all that much Russian tea.  Most of the people I talked to weren't clear that it even exists.  I like to check out shops and preferences in local places we visit but I've been a bit spoiled for going to main producer countries (China, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia).  Not only is tea widely available in those places--not so much in Indonesia, better versions, but in the rest--it's also possible to try as local products.  If I find good Wuyi Yancha or pu'er in Russian shops that will be interesting, but I already know where to get those teas.  Still, some of the input was interesting, as this comment was, following mentioning the standard chain shops there:


...in St.Petersburg tea (and coffee) chains:

- Море чая http://morecha.ru
- Унция http://www.chay.info/eng
- Кантата http://www.cantata.ru


They all have stores in the "tourist downtown" area so you'll probably stumble across one or another. But like you've guessed and most posts here said you'll find either commercial teas or from China/Japan/etc. In Soviet times we used to have at least two famous brands of Russian tea: Три слона (Three elefants) and Бодрость (cheerfulness) but they are gone long time.


Tea shop leads, local culture background, and history in one detailed comment; very nice!

Blogs

One likely problem for this scope is that a tea blogger in Russia would write in Russian.  Automatic translation works but the results can be choppy and unclear.  My favorite US tea blog, Steep Stories, focuses on looking into teas from out of the way places, and he's reviewed a number of them from Russia.  The next problem:  that's going to work well for ordering a tea produced in Russia (and I found a great online lead using that approach), but not so well for shops where someone might go.

I turned up nothing for tea blogs based out of Russia anyway, although this US based version post did discuss what a Samovar is:

Using Google Translate to convert "tea blog" into Russian and searching based on that probably would have been more productive, but then I would definitely need to read any of those identified through automatic translation.

Instagram

Finding pictures of tea shops is actually a really promising approach.  People look for public exposure there, and use different tags, but this kind of approach also really takes some doing.  At some point it has to be about how pleasant the messing around is instead of how productive.

Conclusions

I didn't get far with all that.  There are a half-dozen tea shops starred in Maps in Moscow and that one citation covered what turned up related to St. Petersburg.  Time spent digging through groups didn't get far; I might have added a few shops to a starred list beyond Google search results.

It's funny how there's usually one shop you really should check out, based on a close match with your own interests, and it's a bit unproductive to find out about it after you finish the trip.  I found some great shop options in NYC on a visit through online search, but later group discussion turned up one that was probably better, not so far from our hotel, that I didn't know of to visit.

Since this trip is more about seeing the Kremlin and aurora borealis than tea I won't mind so much if I barely get started on the subject there.  It just wouldn't make for much of a follow-up blog post talking about "not finding any tea in Russia."

Tealicious Bangkok cafe visit

I ran across a Bangkok café with "tea" in the name on Trip Advisor, Tealicious, so I tried it out for lunch.  The site information (Google + page referenced here, because their site isn't pulling up just now) mentioned a large tea selection as well:


We have probably the largest selection of fine teas in Bangkok, such as Earl Grey, Lady Grey, Yorkshire, English Breakfast, Marks & Spencer Gold, Tetley to name but a few.



In retrospect them adding Tetley to that list could have been a warning sign, or not mentioning any typical single plant tea types at all (Longjing / dragonwell, Tie Kuan Yin, etc.).  At any rate the reviews were really good, and it's sort of near my office, one "neighborhood" over in Silom.


The trip there was complicated by the Google map not showing the actual location; very close, but still hard to make it that last 100 feet since it's down the alley from where shown.  In retrospect I was right there, but a local motorcycle taxi driver I asked directions from pointing me in the opposite direction didn't help.



Anywhere in the West the alley it was in could have been a huge warning sign, but things being a bit rough-edged are just part of Bangkok's charm.  There is very little crime to speak of here, so none of those concerns one would have in a US city, and an alley having that developing-world look to it is no sign of what a restaurant might be like either way.  It just isn't a mall environment, which can often be a good thing.

don't worry; lots of Bangkok looks like this

a bit cozy, as long as only a few tables are there at a time

 

 

I picked out a tea first.  There was only one loose tea available, with the rest Twinnings tea bags and such.  No offense to Twinnings about the tea bags, I'm sure they're ok, but I'd just as soon not drink that, unless I'm stuck on a plane with no options or the like.  Since the one loose tea was a Chinese jasmine green pearl tea that's what I chose.


As they served it in a good-sized glass teapot I had a flashback to Hanoi, where I had a really nice green tea served at boiling temperature--a little hot for that type--in a good sized teapot.  It was great tea when I drank it immediately, not bad a couple of minutes later, and by the time a waitress brought me a glass to transfer it to and stop the brewing process it was sort of ruined and bitter.


This time the design of the teapot didn't allow for much contact of water with the tea so brewing was slow, and the tea itself was quite mellow.  After 5 minutes it wasn't really completely brewed yet, after 10 about right, and at 15 still not really overbrewing.  In the middle I compensated to speed it up a little by pouring the tea out of the pot to the cup, then across the leaves, and it worked out.



I ordered a jungle curry.  This reminded me of reading a little on tea pairing recently.  What would someone pair with a jasmine green tea?  What if just limited to Thai food?  Almost certainly not a curry, too strong and spicy to match with almost any tea, but I love that so too bad for the pairing idea. 


It seems the question deserves an answer though, aside from saying any spicy food would mask the subtle attributes of any tea.  A masala chai would work, because it's typical to add milk and sugar, and it's not a tea you need to experience that subtle range of a dozen flavor elements with, they kind of all merge into one nice harmony anyway.  There really should be a Thai version of that but here "Thai tea" means inexpensive black tea mixed with condensed milk, or a powdered and artificially flavored approximation of the same, so whatever the traditional version was that's in the past now.


Actually the tea was really rich tasting, a bit buttery (odd for a green tea), floral (of course; cheating to add flowers), sweet, maybe towards a touch of caramel, so it worked well.  Jungle curry isn't the full-on spice blast that green and red curry profiles bring, more a balanced blend, so although it was a little hot for me the two sets of rich flavors matched up.  Technically I suppose a soft mild cheese with crackers would have let the tea show itself a little more but it was fine.


To switch gears back to food reviewing, I ordered the curry "not spicy," which the staff pointed out doesn't completely make sense given Thai curries are a spicy blend of spices.  Since I've lived in Bangkok for a number of years I get that; "spicy" is relative here, and I'm good with spicy foods (hot for an American). 


Back in America in Thai restaurants my wife used to go through the opposite series of communication steps.  She would order something spicy, and a Thai server--or Laotian; odd there's no way an American could ever spot the difference, but they do tend to run and work in Thai restaurants--would say, "ok, spicy," and she would go on to clarify she is Thai, and she meant really spicy.  Then after getting the food she would ask them for fresh chilis, chili paste, and chili sauce and turn her food into a capsaicin science project that the wait staff couldn't believe, so hot that any babies in the restaurant would start crying just thinking about her eating it.  I guess the parallel doesn't completely hold because I was ordering food not-spicy knowing I was still giving them some space.


They may have cut back a little on the fresh peppercorns red pepper (not the sweet bell-pepper kind common in American; these are tiny and hot) but they seemed to overshoot "not spicy" by a bit.  See the pile on the plate?  It's just that; straight fire.  It was a relatively cool day in Bangkok (around 30 C / 84 F) but still odd to go out for spicy curry and hot tea at mid-day.

jungle curry, jasmine rice, decent green tea--very nice

 

In conclusion, the meal was nice, just disappointing if the idea was to find a café with the best tea selection in Bangkok.  The tea I did have was nice, better than I imagined it would be, and a good Thai curry is no insignificant thing.  It all cost a bit over 200 baht (or around $7), oddly a slightly expensive meal as local working lunches go but quite reasonable for tourist food, on par with meals in a mall. 

I would recommend this restaurant, and the jasmine green tea I had, but to find good tea in Thailand one should read further amongst these blog posts, or else get lost in Chinatown, but buyer-beware buying tea sitting out in giant jars or open bins like they have (which is just crazy). 

I just noticed writing this restaurant is rated #7 of  8753 places to eat in Bangkok on Trip Advisor.  The food was good but come on, top ten in Bangkok?  A monkey could boil some curry paste and vegetables together so I guess I'd have to try something else to better judge.