100 little cups of tea

Coffee drinkers often stick with coffee long after they wish to “get off coffee.” But they think that tea ist just the watery semi-flavored stuff you get in bags at the grocery store or neighborhood cafe. I used to be one of those coffee drinkers.

One Christmas I came home for the holidays and my father had a new obsession: Chinese tea. It took me a while to wrap my head around this totally different way of drinking tea - a thousands of years old tradition. But soon, despite the particular temperatures, cups and brewing vessels, I was hooked, and now drink only the occasional espresso out of desire, but not need. The aspects of the practice of drinking this tea which at first I found strange and a little cumbersome became a treasured ritual.

Well, if you are lucky enough to in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is a place you can go to get the hang of Chinese Tea. Just around the corner from the Pete’s Coffee on 4th Street in Berkeley nestled among the bright shops, is a haven of Chinese tea: Teance. Here you can sample their daily choice, or buy a sampling of all kinds of Oolong, green tea, pu-erh tea, white tea. The staff is knowledgeable and communicative. The owner Winnie is a wealth of information about Chinese tea and also Taiwanese tea. (for more info see www.teance.com)
If you delight in subtlety try her oolongs, greens and whites. If you prefer thick earthy flavors try the pu-erh. Remember that the more aged the pu-erh, the less the caffeine, the more earthy.

The quality of Winni’s stock of teas is quite high. None of that cheap stuff! But there are affordable solutions to be found there as well, if you are on a budget.

I never did give up coffee, I found Chinese tea.