Tea Time!
Where to buy tea, my favorite teahouses, and tea cakes!
Me ‘n tea
If my digestion were less finicky, breakfast and dinner would consist of tea and biscuits or scones with a healthy lunch in between.
I can go into raptures over Chinese and Japanese barely-sweet cookies, and of course, who doesn’t love nitpicking the varieties of scones and their aberrations?
I even confess to loving the cheapo digestive “bickies” you find all over India. Don’t look at the heart attack-inducing ingredient list, just enjoy!
But more than the biscuits and scones themselves, I’m really into tea: learning about the history and cultivation of different kinds of teas, understanding their properties, preparing teas, serving tea, tea pots, and tea cups. One day maybe I’ll learn about prognosticating with tea.
Tea is a wisdom tradition holder and a teacher, but I’m not saying anything that generation upon generation of tea cultivators and drinkers don’t already know.
Where I buy tea
My go-to Indian tea purveyor is Teabox, a farm-to-you outfit in West Bengal. Their teas are high quality and fresh, and they actively support the creation of better conditions for tea plantation workers and more sustainable growing practices.
If Chinese teas are your thing, check out Song Tea in San Francisco. For a very special (but not expensive) treat, try their soba tea. It’s a blend of roasted buckwheat, Peruvian cocoa nibs, Chinese licorice, and a hint of oolong. Fully organic.
Another wonderful Chinese tea seller and tea educator is Grass People Tree. Founder Rui Liu is dedicated to preserving indigenous tea practices, including the harvesting of wild tea, and breaking colonialist influences on our relationship to tea.
Both Song Tea and Grass People Tree sell tea ceramics. But if you have a hankering for traditional clay tea cups from India, you can find several styles at Pure Indian Foods.
The Teahouse
Rui Liu of Grass People Tree says that the Chinese teahouse is the pub of Chinese culture. I’ve been lucky enough to spend time in a variety of teahouses over the years.
My two favorites have been the Imperial Tea Court, formerly in Berkeley, California and Heaven’s Tea right here in Portland, Oregon.
The Imperial Tea Court is owned by tea connoisseur and educator Roy Fong and family. They sell wonderful teas online, so have at it.
Their original teahouse in Berkeley was a slightly funky, cozy haven serving up traditional Chinese tea and a changing menu of absolutely delicious homemade food. It was fun to hang out there for an afternoon with friends and many rounds of tea. The small plates of curry with homemade noodles were my favorite.
The Imperial Tea Court still runs a teahouse at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. Definitely worth a visit, but given the uber-fancy, touristic location, I can’t imagine it’s as tempting as the original.
Heavens Tea School of Tea Arts
Presided over by tea mystic extraordinaire, Po Rosenberg, Heavens Tea isn’t a public teahouse exactly, but you can schedule magical and medicinal tea journeys with Po and a group of friends, or go solo!
Heavens Tea offers both an indoor teahouse encircled by mountains of rare teas and an outdoor tea pavilion.
Tea is a gateway to inner growth, healing, and the subtle mysteries of existence. Tea is a gift from nature to help us learn the flow of nature and the language of life. It is a medicine of the Divine Harmonic and therefore a doorway to alignment with the Tao. In this school, we teach the understanding of tea as a vibrational medicine for self-cultivation, health, and plant medicine. Tea is a plant that helps humans have a visceral experience of both their humanity and their divinity and how to move through this life embracing both as sacred.
~ Po Rosenberg
Matri’s Russian Tea Cakes
No cuppa would be complete (imho) without a not-too-sweet biscuit or tea cake of some variety. Here is a recipe for a Jaya Kula favorite.
Ingredients
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 t vanilla extract
3 cups superfine almond flour
1/2 cup oat flour
1/3 c tapioca flour or starch of choice
2/3 cup raw walnuts, finely ground (or pecans)
1/4 t salt
1/2 t cardamon (and/or other spices if you wish)
Sugar of your choice for rolling
Instructions
Whip butter with a mixer on medium speed for a minute or so.
Add the rest of the ingredients, and mix until well combined.
Form balls about 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter and place on a buttered baking sheet.
Place tray of dough balls in the freezer and freeze for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Roll each ball of dough in the sweetener of choice.
Bake 12 to 15 minutes, just until cookies begin turning slightly golden-brown.
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The best tea house! 🌹🌹