My experience at TenRen
Posted: Sep 20th, '10, 05:54
We scarcely manage to go downtown once a year. Yesterday I went and walked around in the Chinese district, with a picture of a Kamjove kettle, to see if any of the numerous shop would have something kettle like that. And so I stopped by a TenRen tea shop. I was given recently a box of Shi Hu Long Jin made by TenRen so I was curious about that shop.
They seemingly only carry boxed teas. I certainly haven't seen loose teas clearly displayed for sale. As soon as one enters, a female Chinese employee greets you. "Just looking, thank you". They had a few 'Yixing' tea pots at about $90+ each. Regular small size. I lifted two of them. Feather light. I do not know what type of clay they are using to make these, but it is certainly not as heavy as the $15 one I got from YS. Is it that the more expensive they get the lighter they are made ? Or is it that these tea pots did not use any Yixing clay at all ? Although I put the tea pots pretty much in the same orientation in the display, the employee nevertheless promptly made sure they were rightly oriented. Well, I guess this is an Oriental custom. OK, no more bad puns.
I asked if they had any Taiping HouKui. I had to repeat twice. OK, my Chinese accent might not be the best ! At the second time she replied with a 'no' that was more like: 'no, what kind of strange thing is this ?' than 'no, I know what you mean but we do not have any'.
A bit strange I found as they should recognize an Occidental using keywords about a potentially expensive tea so that they could at least steer towards other expensive teas.
And so I had a bubble tea supposed to be made from TieKwanYin ("do you want milk with it ?") and found out that tapioca in a 'tea drink' is not that much of bad idea after all. Haven't found any kettle, though.
They seemingly only carry boxed teas. I certainly haven't seen loose teas clearly displayed for sale. As soon as one enters, a female Chinese employee greets you. "Just looking, thank you". They had a few 'Yixing' tea pots at about $90+ each. Regular small size. I lifted two of them. Feather light. I do not know what type of clay they are using to make these, but it is certainly not as heavy as the $15 one I got from YS. Is it that the more expensive they get the lighter they are made ? Or is it that these tea pots did not use any Yixing clay at all ? Although I put the tea pots pretty much in the same orientation in the display, the employee nevertheless promptly made sure they were rightly oriented. Well, I guess this is an Oriental custom. OK, no more bad puns.
I asked if they had any Taiping HouKui. I had to repeat twice. OK, my Chinese accent might not be the best ! At the second time she replied with a 'no' that was more like: 'no, what kind of strange thing is this ?' than 'no, I know what you mean but we do not have any'.
A bit strange I found as they should recognize an Occidental using keywords about a potentially expensive tea so that they could at least steer towards other expensive teas.
And so I had a bubble tea supposed to be made from TieKwanYin ("do you want milk with it ?") and found out that tapioca in a 'tea drink' is not that much of bad idea after all. Haven't found any kettle, though.