Tea

Types

• Pu'er tea

  This is a pretty dark, earthy tea. It has little caffeine content, so you can easily rebrew the same tea leaves throughout the day. This is one of my favorites.

  One of things I like about this tea is that it comes in, like, a packed disc. These discs also make great gifts for friends that probably normally don’t come into contact with pu'er tea.

• Green tea

  You know, I actually don’t know enough to be able to pick out a good green tea, which is why I usally stick to pu'er.

• Matcha

  Don’t know enough about this either. I do know that I don’t like matcha-flavored products, except for some matcha ice cream I got in Tokyo one time.

• Lapsang souchong

  Real smoky.

• Nestea, Brisk

  These are sodas. Do you remember their commercials?

• Boba tea (a.k.a. “bubble tea” or “pearl tea”)

  I don’t think people are really drinking this for the tea.

• Earl Grey

  Do I like this? I think I don’t, and I’m not sure I remember why. You know, I still don’t even know what Earl Grey really even is.

• Fruit tea

  Anything is tea if you boil it.

• Hot dog water

  Okay, well not anything.

• Thai Iced Tea

  Ooh, yeah, I like this. Super sweet, pretty strong.

• Long Island Iced Tea

  Strong in a different way.

• Ginger tea

  Probably good if you have a cold. Maybe add honey and lemon to it.

• Peppermint tea

  Pretty calming

Miscellaneous

I’ll fix this later.

• I went to the Osulloc “tea museum” in Jeju Island in Korea in 2022. Pretty small for a “museum”, but they did have a green tea plantation where you could take pictures.

  

  

• You can go tea tasting in Chinatown at Vital Tea Leaf. I think there are multiple locations just along Grant.
• One of my favorite places to get tea in Shanghai was Tianshan Tea City (天山茶城) on North Zhongshan Road and South Yuping Road.

  Speaking of tea and Shanghai, there’s a scam called the “tea ceremony” scam that a lot of tourists fall prey to. People (usually young women) pretend to be tourists wanting to go to a tea ceremony, and they invite you to go along with them. The tea that you get, however, tends to be absurdly overpriced.

• Other places to get tea in SF?
  • Crown and Crumpet

    I haven’t been here, but my mom has. Not sure what she thought of it.

  • Japanese Tea Garden (map)

    They have a tea house, though I don’t think I’ve actually done the tea ceremony here. I have, however, been to Umami Cafe in Portland’s Japanese Garden (map).