greenisgood wrote:I've never been to the St. Anthony one, but I really like going to the one in St. Paul. I've seen Bill there a couple times but my guess is he might be at the other one...there's another manager at the highland park one a lot.
Some stuff that's unique are the Handmaid Glendale Nilgiri which is a really good light black tea with big leaves, the Blue Beauty Oolong which is flavored with ginseng and licorice and is kind of interestingly spicy, a good green called orchid plum which is unflavored but tastes like it says, and a green from ceylon called bonnie blink thats really odd but good. Besides that they have a lot of solid chinese greens and darjeelings. And if you're into chai, their house chai is reallly good.
... and Wild Kwan Yin, of course. I've made my list. You really know the place; thanks for sharing your knowledge.
I had a bad experience at the Highland Park store on my first visit a couple years ago. I'd already purchased some Assam via internet from them based on a very positive review by Anodyne in one of her meticulous reviews in either the Cha Dao or TeaMail forum, so I was excited to visit the Twin Cities and see the place in person. It was Green Tea Tuesday and you could get samples of 5 greens to try. Well, the greens were all served from thermoses where they had been stewing all day before we got to them.
Blech!
I have had my best domestic vendor second flush Darj from there, but Lochan Teas, Tea Emporium, Thunderbolt Teas and the other Indian vendors seem to have an edge over Stateside purveyors when it comes to the really hard stuff.
Last time I was at the St Anthony store, they were preparing packages to mail out to internet customers and it seems quite a bit bigger than Highland Park. Also, St Anthony isn't such a high rent district, so that may be the business office.