TeaChat

Hi everyone!

I've been reading teachat for quite some time now and got bored always just reading about tea on here, so I went ahead and finally registered. And I'm looking forward to participate in the next OTTI!

I'm studying Japanese at the University of Vienna at the moment and most likely for a couple more years. And I've just been a month in Tokyo. Tried some amazing teas at Ippodos' Tokyo store, bought a lot of tea and some real nice teaware. I also ate about a ton of Gyudon - I love it!

Austria isn't really blessed with good tea stores, but luckily the Czech Republic and Slovakia aren't far away and they have some really good stores.

kanpai!

Welcome to teachat from Graz
In Vienna you are lucky to have Chanoma - nice place for Japanese tea.

Ciao
Marco

Hi Marco!
Thanks!

Yeah, cha no ma is a nice place, but that's pretty much the only good place, where one can drink good japanese tea. All the other teahouses specialize in herbal/fruit teas with some Darjeeling, Assam and Ceylon thrown into.
Are there any good teahouses in graz? Last time I was there in summer, I didn't find one.

cheers!

Hello,
In a pinch there is Haas:
http://www.haas-haas.at/
It is right in the center of town on the back of the cathedral.
Their tea buyer there is quite friendly! She was patient and engaging. Happy to talk about tea. Is the place a super intense gung-fu kind of place? Of course not. But if you go in the back there is a small lovely garden patio where you can have food and brew, all in the shadow of Stephansdom. They had some korean boseong.

If you go there, be sure to stop in and say 'Hi' to Ludwig at Vinotek. They have some great Scotch, wine and other spirits.

I also bumped into another decent looking tea shop a few blocks away from Domplatz. It is called Schönbichler, on the corner of Wollzeile and Essiggasse. It looked pretty Mariage Frères style. There I bought 50 g of Szechuan black and they threw in a free sample.

You describe it as it is. In our country tea is all about herbal, fruit or English style tea. And teaware - well just meant for those kinds of tea.
So we buy online and dream about Asian teahouses.

Yeah, Haas&Haas is okay. But they brew the tea for you and you never see the leaves.
Demer's Teahouse gives you one of those little "tea for one"-sets with a pretty small amount of leaves.
Jaeger's Teahouse has only 3 very uncomfortable tables and the only Pu-Erh they have is "King's Pu-Erh", which is a Shu and the taste is not kingly at all.

The first time I was at Madame Wu's in Linz, I was actually surprised. They prepared a nice matcha and the tearoom was very comfy.
But the second time I was there, I ordered Lung Ching and they served it in an iron kettle, which they seem to use for all their teas. Well, my Lung Ching tasted pretty much the same as the "Strawberry-Popcorn"-tea my girlfriend drank.

You don't have to dream about asian teahouses. Just take the train to Praque and about 5 minutes from the train station is the teahouse Cha Dao. Excellent teas, nice staff, there's a electronic kettle on every table and they refill the kettle for free.
And in Praque they also have Bily Jeráb. They have some nice korean tea and good japanese teas.

Hi northi. Welcome to TeaChat. Hope to see you around.

Since you brought it up, OTTI 16 will go live in a few hours. You can check out all the info on this round here: http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 47#p229747

Hi Chip, thanks for the welcome.
The OTTI round sounds nice and I'll definitely participate.

Currently in Wien and I brought a good selection of tea with me for my consumption while here. Flew China Airlines (Taiwanese), so I got to drink some fairly decent Tieguanyin on the way over. Since I landed, though, it's been 0,5L glasses of lager. Still waiting to see how the Austrian water affects my tea.

jayinhk wrote:Currently in Wien and I brought a good selection of tea with me for my consumption while here. Flew China Airlines (Taiwanese), so I got to drink some fairly decent Tieguanyin on the way over. Since I landed, though, it's been 0,5L glasses of lager. Still waiting to see how the Austrian water affects my tea.

Hi Jay,
How long will you be in Wien?
If you can, check out Vintotek Stefansadom. The owner, Ludwig can steer you to some nice wine and local recommendations.
Good trip!
H

Gruss Gott BH,

I'll be here until the 14th, but I think I'll be back here again soon, and I'm considering moving here too.

Not sure if I'll have time to check the place out, but thanks for the suggestion! My dad left quite a stash of Austrian wine behind and I sampled most of a bottle (hic) a few nights ago. Back to Monkey Pick TGY today.