Float Away With Floating Leaves Tea
October 20, 2009 by Hedonista · Leave a Comment
With the Northwest Tea Festival not far behind us, it’s worth highlighting fellow teaophiles in the greater Seattle area.
A local fav is Floating Leaves Tea – a Ballard tea house that in August 2008 downsized and moved down the block to 1704 NW Market Street. Now it’s primarily a Seattle-based importer and retailer of fine teas, tea ware, and tea culture from Taiwan, Japan and China. (Tastings are free.)
Although the old site – currently the location of the new pan-Asian fusion Root Table Restaurant, located at 2213 NW Market Street (stay tuned for an upcoming review) – was much larger and café-like, this new, much smaller venue allows for fabulous and comfortably intimate one-to-one tea tastings with Shiuwen Tai, who heralds from Taiwan.
Cup of oolong tea surrounded by YiXing tea pots. Each small pot is to only be used for a single type of tea – and is never to be washed (think seasoned skillet, here).
“Taiwanese oolong is my pride,” she says. “What I care about the most when I purchase a tea is how it feels in the mouth; the taste and smell of the tea are secondary.”
Shiuwen Tai of Floating Leaves Tea: an agent of her Taiwanese culture, Asian tea wares, and some incredible teas.
Although the Taiwanese tea culture is not as steeped in ceremony as the traditional Japanese or Korean tea ceremonies, both China and Taiwan do have many subtle nuances to the style (kungfu or gongfu cha – “way of tea brewing with great skill” – in Chinese, laoren/lao zheng cha – “old man tea” in Taiwanese) and protocol surrounding the enjoyment of tea.
My visit last week was one of those winter is a-comin’ days – wet ‘n’ windy – so Shiuwen selected four teas especially good for cold, damp days: roasted teas, which provide a hearty, warming taste and feel.
The first – Dong Ding Mountain oolong tea – is one of the finest Taiwanese oolongs; a very green-smelling roasted tea with a fantastic and very clean mouth feel. The next, called Oriental Beauty, is a browner tea (more oxidization) with a sweetness akin to a lightly sweetened iced tea, or green grape skins with a citrus mint finish – only hot. (The sweetness apparently comes from the tea plant emitting a secretion to ward off attacking insects called tea green leafhoppers, Jacobiasca Formosana. Delicious!) The third tea – Li Shan Da Yu Ling – is a subtly complex high mountain tea with a rich, buttery mouth feel. (Think artichoke hearts dipped in herbed butter.) To finish, we enjoyed the luscious, charcoal-gritty-earthiness of the smoky richness of pu-erh tea – a great tea to enjoy after a meal, for it aids in digestion.
Shiuwen shows a pottery container of pu-erh tea while Konghai, her 22-month-old son, looks on.
Shiuwen’s teas are priced for any-sized purchase amount; from her green, white and black teas ($4.50-$7.00 an ounce) to her Taiwanese oolong ($4:00-$16.00 an ounce), to her pu-erh ($50.00-$75.00 a block, with smaller sample packages available for purchase).
In addition to the tea, tea wares and cultural awareness she provides in her tea shop, she also offers annual trips to the tea farms, cultural sights and hot springs of Taiwan.
“These annual trips to visit the tea farms and teach Taiwanese culture to visitors reconnect me with my own culture,” Shiuwen admits, insisting that it’s “the cheapest tea tour ever.” At $3,099-$3,699 per person for 11 days – tentatively from May 3rd to May 14th, 2010 – she just may have a point.
Be sure to drop in for a visit with Shiuwen and Kong Hai at Floating Leaves Tea; you’ll either float to Taiwan just for the afternoon on the exquisite oolong tea leaves or decide you want more and float all the way to Taiwan with them next May.
Either way, you won’t regret the journey.
