tea, anyone?

Ventured today to a little tea shop near the school. I’ve been meaning to go in ever since coming to campus but since I know nothing about tea I had no idea what I would buy. So today I just walked in and they sat me down and pulled out some tea and did a little tasting ritual. They take the tea, put it in a little bowl. Then they heat up some water, pour the water over the tea in the bowl and then let it sit for only a second and pour it out into little tea cups. The tea overflows the little cups, which are really the small tea cups I associate more with Japanese tea, and they empty out the cups afterwards. It seems the tea is merely to flavor the cups and get the little cups hot. Then they pour a second batch of water over the tea leaves and let this sit a little longer. This they pour through a strainer that sits atop a little glass beaker. Then they pour the tea from the beaker into the now heated little cup. They did this with one other tea, and I knew I pretty much had to buy one and picked the first one and left with a bag of tea that was fairly expensive by Chinese standards. I am sure they pulled out the most expensive tea for me. But I expected it and went in for the experience and for the experience alone it was worth it. Actually it is about the price you would pay for tea at a good tea shop in the states. And tea lasts a while, so we’ll see. I think it will be a nice place to go back to over a period of two years and get to know teas–especially the less expensive ones in the shop, which I will be sure to ask about (well, point to at least, since they don’t speak English and my Chinese is still pretty weak). It is literally a little mom and pop shop, so it would be good to support them, and a good place to practice Chinese and learn about tea.