Tokyo Adventures

This past weekend we traveled down to Tokyo for a friend's wedding, and planned to make a side trip to Yokohama which is known for it's China Town. Well, that fell through, but Maura tracked down a great tea shop in Tokyo to visit. The Hua Tai Tea Co. had a gorgious selection of purple clay, and glazed porcelin teapots, water heaters, slop boxes, utensils, and of course Chinese teas. It's located near the Shibuya station on the JR Yamanote line, at 1-18-6 Dogenza, Shibuya-ku. The first floor contained tea and equipment with pots starting around $20. The second floor contained more expensive gear and tables where you can order from a large menue and drink in comfort.

I'll let Maura describe what she got, but I went for a Kazou Pu er. You'll have to forgive my spelling because it's a translation in to Roman charaters from a Japanese phonetic translation of Chinese. The tea was aged 15 years and they brought it out in a dark purple clay teapot. It only takes half a minute for the first brewing, and even the sixth only took sixty seconds. Let me tell you what it smelled like. Walk into an ancient forest. Kneel down and brush away the top layers of dried leaves. Then dig your fingers into the black loam benieth and raise it up to your nose. Take a big whiff, and you'll know what my pu er smelled like. The initial flavor is much that same, but there is almost no astringent taste. Also the finish was extreamly clean, like water drawn from a mountian spring.

We came away from the shop poorer in wallet, but richer in tea. We grabbed a selection of oolongs to try, and you'll certainly read more about them as we open them up. We also acquired a cute little taveling tea kit. Maybe I can convince Maura to post a photograph. It's got a zippered, padded case, six small teacups, a mixing bowl, and a brewing cup. All are plain white glazed porcelin.