Tea stores in Chinatown NY

[Michael_C]

Okay - this is getting off topic, and I apologize for that, but rather than PM you I thought that (maybe) some of the other forumites might find this mildly interesting.

This is from the Shiki-Gun Nara Jusco, taken last September (when the yen was about 110 to the dollar):



You can see in the lower right corner a locally grown green - sencha - which is about $4.50 for 150 grams. There's a genmai-cha in there also, 150g for a little more than three dollars. Bear in mind most of these are grown locally, and they all have harvest and use-by dates on them, something I almost never see in the States.

Here's a little bit down the aisle:



That's a lot of variety of green tea! The more expensive ones, in the upper right, are gyokuros, about $10.80 for 150g being the most expensive. It doesn't hurt that they are locally transported, meaning no freezing cargo bays over long flights. You can see a green there for less than $3 for 150g! And I'm certain it's a very good tea. Of course, if you look, you can find crazy expensive tea, but it's used for family gifts, for example, and the packaging is very often pricey as well. One of the best greens I ever drank was from a woman selling from a stand outside of Ise, about $5 for 300g - it was great stuff, packed right on her family farm.

Here's one last example. You know those ItoEn 'Teas Tea'? In New York, they range from $1.75 to $2.50 per bottle. Yowza!



There's a small bit of a full aisle of bottled unsweetened tea goodness, less than $1 per bottle. And bear in mind this is just at a Jusco, not a special tea shop.

again, apologies for going off topic. But when I see that New York's ItoEn is mentioned as 'competitive' - well, I have to wonder, competitive to what? Really, the sad truth of it is that in America we are always paying much more than the actual value of green tea. Even mugicha here (in New York) is a minimum of 50 bags for $4 - a good 100% price increase.

Gosh, I didn't mean for this to come off as harsh. I'd love great, reasonably priced tea as the next person (Adagio, honestly, is one of the best vendors in this respect). And I would love - absolutely - a good, real, high quality and inexpensive tea shop in Manhattan. Maybe it's time to start something..?

[PolyhymnianMuse]

Wow Michael_C... That is a wonderful sight right there....

If only we had stuff like that here...

[silverneedles]

I've not had much time to poke around NY for Japanese,Chinese supermarkets, but in Los Angeles there are big Japanese supermarkets such as Mitsuwa market that have such big isle of bottled teas... (I actually found more tea stores in LA than NY so far)...
i recognize the things on that last pic you took, itoens, tea sodas, and bottom corner right = suntori (i like suntori's teas)

Michael, i understand your frustation, but this is not Japan. in the USA there is no tea drinking culture (tea as in fresh, good quality looseleaf tea, not the flavored stuff or teabag liptons, snapple or arizona...), there are no tea growing fields (ok maybe a couple),
so, its a niche market = higher prices,
also as Pentox says next - most of the tea needs to be imported...

...we here that want loose leaf tea are a pretty small number
...

[Pentox]

Sadly though there is a whole series of reasons why tea is so much pricier in NY than a store that can get local tea in Japan.

The biggest one of all though is transportation. Just thinking about the transportation alone almost justifies the cost difference. Like a 500mL bottle of tea especially that's half a kilo. To transport a half a kilo pretty much all the way on the other side of the world increases the price by 50c? I think that's pretty understandable.

[joelbct]

But when I see that New York's ItoEn is mentioned as 'competitive' - well, I have to wonder, competitive to what?

Competitive to the other online vendors that we know of.

I suspect places like O-Cha, Ippodo, and Ito En offer better tea than does a supermarket, even a Japanese supermarket, and I doubt their markup is particularly high. They probably pay their sources what the product is worth, in an open market, and then mark it up enough to stay in business. If these people wanted to get rich, they would be selling diamonds or oil, not tea

And I can guarantee that the Ito En store loses money- a 750 square foot retail space at 69th St. and Madison Ave rents for $50,000 to $75,000 a month. They are not there specifically to turn a profit, they are there as a flagship for their brand.

All that said, if you or anyone else can offer me tea (not just pictures or stories of tea) as high-quality as the aforementioned vendors, for significantly less, you have a customer!

And lastly, reality is often a matter of perception. As far as beverages go, even expensive tea is cheap! An $80/lb tea is what, 25-50 cents a cup, and that's just counting first infusions!

I think if we are going to worry about something, it's the cost of the house or apartment in which to brew the tea, the price of energy, and the stagnation of middle class real wages the past 30 years, not the price of the tea itself

[PolyhymnianMuse]

I think if we are going to worry about something, it's the cost of the house or apartment in which to brew the tea, the price of energy, and the stagnation of middle class real wages the past 30 years, not the price of the tea itself

Being a 19 year old planning on college next fall and worrying about all that stuff, what you say is true. In terms of the rest of things we spend money on, tea is quite cheap even for more expensive ones, considering any sort of drink you would purchase, including just a bottle of water is usually atleast a dollar itself.

[witches brew]

There's the price and then there's the experience. Shops like ItoEn are about the experience as much as they are about the tea.

My local Japanese market has a broad selection of teas, including ItoEn, at a reasonable price. But there's not much experience in picking up a bag of tea along with my rice and vegetables. It's just grocery shopping.

When I go to ItoEn, I'm in a tea sanctuary. The store is quiet. The lighting is soft. Everything is relevant to tea. I have a chance to see the leaves, breathe their aroma, and sample the tea before I buy. I can discuss the tea with the very knowledgeable staff.

Some things are worth the price.

[hop_goblin]

OH man, I would love for my grocers to look like that!

[silverneedles]

Pearl River Mart (Manhattan)
has some pottery which includes Kyusus... ones i saw were $36-69, and are sorta ugly and cheap looking (imho)

[Chip]

Okay - this is getting off topic, and I apologize for that, but rather than PM you I thought that (maybe) some of the other forumites might find this mildly interesting.

This is from the Shiki-Gun Nara Jusco, taken last September (when the yen was about 110 to the dollar):



You can see in the lower right corner a locally grown green - sencha - which is about $4.50 for 150 grams. There's a genmai-cha in there also, 150g for a little more than three dollars. Bear in mind most of these are grown locally, and they all have harvest and use-by dates on them, something I almost never see in the States.

Here's a little bit down the aisle:



That's a lot of variety of green tea! The more expensive ones, in the upper right, are gyokuros, about $10.80 for 150g being the most expensive. It doesn't hurt that they are locally transported, meaning no freezing cargo bays over long flights. You can see a green there for less than $3 for 150g! And I'm certain it's a very good tea. Of course, if you look, you can find crazy expensive tea, but it's used for family gifts, for example, and the packaging is very often pricey as well. One of the best greens I ever drank was from a woman selling from a stand outside of Ise, about $5 for 300g - it was great stuff, packed right on her family farm.

Here's one last example. You know those ItoEn 'Teas Tea'? In New York, they range from $1.75 to $2.50 per bottle. Yowza!



There's a small bit of a full aisle of bottled unsweetened tea goodness, less than $1 per bottle. And bear in mind this is just at a Jusco, not a special tea shop.

again, apologies for going off topic. But when I see that New York's ItoEn is mentioned as 'competitive' - well, I have to wonder, competitive to what? Really, the sad truth of it is that in America we are always paying much more than the actual value of green tea. Even mugicha here (in New York) is a minimum of 50 bags for $4 - a good 100% price increase.

Gosh, I didn't mean for this to come off as harsh. I'd love great, reasonably priced tea as the next person (Adagio, honestly, is one of the best vendors in this respect). And I would love - absolutely - a good, real, high quality and inexpensive tea shop in Manhattan. Maybe it's time to start something..?

Woooohoooo...encore !!! How did I miss this. My market carries Lipton, CS, Tetley...life is good for some folks, and not so good for others.

[greenisgood]

I agree with WitchesBrew, people always complain about how expensive Whole Foods is to say Cub or Rainbow but I personally feel like its worth it, at least every now and then, to go there and have a very pleasant grocery shopping experience and pay a few cents or a dollar more for things like produce and dairy-- and usually to buy organically which is like a donation to the environment (and a lot of times tastes better).

That was quite a long-winded analogy but its the same with tea shops. Sometimes its the small things like atmosphere or service that make the experience special and are what we don't include in the price.

And really, tea is cheap, especially for something that you enjoy everyday multiple times a day and compared to pretty much anything else that you can be a serious connoisseur about. I have no problem paying a little more for something special (and still have it be cheap).

[chrl42]

Okay - this is getting off topic, and I apologize for that, but rather than PM you I thought that (maybe) some of the other forumites might find this mildly interesting.

This is from the Shiki-Gun Nara Jusco, taken last September (when the yen was about 110 to the dollar):



You can see in the lower right corner a locally grown green - sencha - which is about $4.50 for 150 grams. There's a genmai-cha in there also, 150g for a little more than three dollars. Bear in mind most of these are grown locally, and they all have harvest and use-by dates on them, something I almost never see in the States.

Here's a little bit down the aisle:



That's a lot of variety of green tea! The more expensive ones, in the upper right, are gyokuros, about $10.80 for 150g being the most expensive. It doesn't hurt that they are locally transported, meaning no freezing cargo bays over long flights. You can see a green there for less than $3 for 150g! And I'm certain it's a very good tea. Of course, if you look, you can find crazy expensive tea, but it's used for family gifts, for example, and the packaging is very often pricey as well. One of the best greens I ever drank was from a woman selling from a stand outside of Ise, about $5 for 300g - it was great stuff, packed right on her family farm.

Here's one last example. You know those ItoEn 'Teas Tea'? In New York, they range from $1.75 to $2.50 per bottle. Yowza!



There's a small bit of a full aisle of bottled unsweetened tea goodness, less than $1 per bottle. And bear in mind this is just at a Jusco, not a special tea shop.

again, apologies for going off topic. But when I see that New York's ItoEn is mentioned as 'competitive' - well, I have to wonder, competitive to what? Really, the sad truth of it is that in America we are always paying much more than the actual value of green tea. Even mugicha here (in New York) is a minimum of 50 bags for $4 - a good 100% price increase.

Gosh, I didn't mean for this to come off as harsh. I'd love great, reasonably priced tea as the next person (Adagio, honestly, is one of the best vendors in this respect). And I would love - absolutely - a good, real, high quality and inexpensive tea shop in Manhattan. Maybe it's time to start something..?

Hehe..I can just post a pic of my local market if I had a digital cam..
Canned Long Jing for one dollar..

[silverneedles]

come on Chrl42 !!!!!!, get a cam, phone cam, send us a picture

[RemedialLogic]

Pearl River Mart (Manhattan)
has some pottery which includes Kyusus... ones i saw were $36-69, and are sorta ugly and cheap looking (imho)

Those are like about the same ones in Kam man foods, they do have a few teeny tiny old yixings in a corner somewhere.

oh and chrl42 i can find canned LJ in chinatown too for close to 3 dollars a can/foil bag but the quality i wouldnt be so sure of at all...

[Abracadaver!]

There is an additional spot in NYC that occasionally has great teaware that I'd like to recommend: Seasons International in Soho. Since I'm a newbie here, I won't post a link but they're worth googling. Right now they are having an exhibition of ceramics by New York based (and primarily Japanese) ceramicists. I snagged a beautiful Bizen-style yunomi for $40!