Eat tea. Yes, that’s right. We love eating tea, when it comes to matcha that is. Matcha is the only tea we actually eat.
The finely milled powder from shade grown organic Japanese green tea whips up into a creamy delicious froth. And the effect? We describe it as somewhere between wheatgrass and and espresso. Caffeinated and robust, yet fresh and vegetal. Perfect for sleepy mornings or whenever you could use a boost of inspiration.
When the weather warms up, it’s a great time to chill your teas down. Did you know there’s more than one way to make chilled tea? The most common technique is to brew tea with hot water, then pour it over ice or refrigerate it. But you can also brew tea with cold water, which extracts more sweetness and yields a smoother body.
Cold-brewed Pineapple Coconut Oolong is our favorite warm weather refreshment. With a creamy flavor, heady tropical aroma, and natural sweetness, it goes down easy on those scorcher days.
Here’s how to cold-brew tea:
Learn More About Cold-Brewing Tea
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As you explore the world of tea, you’ll come to a point where you want something more. Something more exotic. Something that surprises. Something so delicious that your worries melt away leaving you squarely in the present moment, a cup in your hand and a smile playing on your lips.
That’s when it’s time to brew some Samovar Gyokuro—the fine wine of Japanese green tea.
Unlike most teas, Gyokuro is grown in the shade under straw mats for about 20 days prior to harvest. This stresses the plant and as it struggles to draw energy from the sun the chemistry of the leaves change. The result is higher levels of L-Theanine, responsible for increased mental clarity and focus, and a clear resonating note of the most unique of all flavors: umami.
If you are familiar with our standard brewing instructions (steeping one to two tbs. of tea in boiling water for 15-60 seconds) you’ll have to set them aside. They won’t help you here. Gyokuro has special leaves that you need to treat with extra gentle, loving care.
For the rest of the week you can watch Episode 9 from The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide To Tea, where Leo and I share a Gyokuro brewing and tasting session.
Learn more about The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide To Tea →
Don’t be fooled by the small amount of tea from the first infusion. The pale green color gives this tea it’s name which translates to “jade dew.” The aroma is reminiscent of a warm, humid day at the sea. The tea is viscous and brothy. The flavor is pure, full-bodied umami. The first infusion is the only one with this intense umami flavor. There is only one first infusion. Cherish it. Share it with your friends. There is nothing else like it—they will be blown away.
The flavor packed into this tea will be fully released after about the fifth hot water infusion. After that, mix the leaves into a bowl of steamed rice, add a little soy sauce and sprinkle on sesame seeds for a savory treat.
For a twist on chazuke, Japanese tea soup, add enough hot water to make a green tea broth. Top with pickled veggies and nori flakes. Yum…
In gratitude,
Jesse Jacobs
Two of the most common questions we hear are “What is the best way to brew my tea?” and “How should I taste tea to get the most out of it?” The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide To Tea video series covers these and a number of other topics: how to judge tea quality, what tea is, information on all tea varieties, and more.
Engage all your senses as you learn the art and practice of tasting tea. Enter your email and we’ll send you details to unlock this episode, for FREE.
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We are passionate about tea and committed to helping you find the best way to make tea a rewarding part of your life.
We often get questions about tea and we wanted to share the discussion with you so everyone can benefit. Here’s a question that came in this week from Doug in Tuscon, AZ about the difference between Samovar Tea Lounge tea and Teavana.
Subject: Samovar, Teavana, and other
Greetings.
Loving your website! I have been reading and learning more about tea (and coffee–go Blue Bottle). In Tucson we have an excellent Chinese Tea House and also a Teavana retail shop. However, I am curious about Samovar vs Teavana where equipment suggestions, tea ware available for purchase and the tea itself are concerned. They [Teavana] tout themselves as the ultimate in tea but in spite of finding their tea very satisfying I am not convinced that they are the true purveyors but rather a major chain doing quality work. Are you willing to speak to this? My wife and I are departing for a few days this weekend. Upon returning I will be spending more time on your site viewing the videos. Am considering the Ultimate Guide package/s. Have been reading Zen Habits for nearly a couple years now and have at least one of Leo’s books. We had a San Francisco trip planned in January that fell through. We will be making plans for a long-weekend visit as soon as we can. You are on the list of Must-See places.
Oh, also read 101 Cookbooks and Omnivore Books postings. Pitch Perfect Audio (Matt Rotunda) is one of my favorite audio shops and people in the US! I say this in hope that you understand my enthusiasm for the Bay Area and tea, as well as the sincerity of my question. It’s part of how I learn. You know, who to trust where the real information is concerned. Thanks for any help you can provide. Best, Doug (Douglas & Peggy, Tucson, AZ)
Dear Doug,
Thank you so much for taking the time to research us and to ask this great question. Tea has been growing like crazy in America, and as you can see in Tuscon, the number of options is growing quickly.
If there’s one thing I can say for certain about tea, it’s this: Tea is personal. We’ve got our opinions and perspectives, but I don’t assume they are right for everyone. Way to go for doing the research and making up your own mind on the subject.
On to your question: What makes Samovar Tea Lounge different from Teavana? For that matter, what makes Samovar different than David’s Tea, Numi Tea, Yogi Tea, and even Celestial Seasonings?!
Actually, we all share a lot, and a lot of these companies have been doing great work bringing tea to the masses. The passion and appreciation for tea is continuing to catch on, and we’re really proud to be part of such an inspired industry.
But we do have a unique perspective that sets us apart. When you boil it down, the difference lies in our business model. At Samovar Tea Lounge, we think of ourselves as the biggest little tea company in America. These other companies have prioritized moving hundreds of thousands (millions?) of boxes of tea, and that means making the product fit the biggest possible market. That leads to selling tea with big margins (aka cheap for them to buy) and then trying to make it “accessible” to the widest, and least discriminating palates which leads to spraying on artificial flavors (strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, pineapple, juicy frutti, creme, …). You can read more about: The Truth about Teavana, here, and here.
We take a different approach. Our goal is to make tea simple, to take out the hassle, and to weed through the thousands of teas and blends to bring your our short list of the very best handcrafted, whole-leaf teas you can find. Anywhere.
As a small company, we’ve had to embrace our constraints. That means we focus on what really matters: developing a small but loyal group of informed, appreciative, like-minded fans and giving them an enriching experience.
We don’t sell the cheapest tea out there. And that’s okay. People are still learning to appreciate the distinctions in quality in tea. But as they learn to appreciate small batch, artisan teas in the way that they’ve learned to appreciate the difference between a $10 bottle of wine and a $75 bottle, we’ll be here, ready and waiting.
Thanks again for the great question. I hope this answer helps!
Engage all your senses as you learn the art and practice of tasting tea. Enter your email and we’ll send you details to unlock Episode 7 of the Ultimate Beginner’s Guide To Tea: How To Taste Tea The Samovar Way—for free.
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Nothing sets tone and atmosphere like music. It bypasses conscious thought and resonates at a deep, primordial level. So when you brew a pot of tea for yourself, or your friends, what do you put on?
A recent conversation on our Facebook Page turned up some recommendations that we need to followup on—and that we thought you might enjoy.
Have you heard our very own audio soundtrack, ONE: Tea Lounge Groove? Join the Samovar Tea Lounge community and we’ll send you links to three of our favorite tracks.
Try a flight of three top-quality pu-erhs at the Mission-Castro and Hayes/Zen Valley Tea Lounges! This tea flight is a great opportunity to experience the complexities that make each tea uniquely delicious. And then there’s the chocolate.
Pu-erh Tea is the class of tea that is aged to perfection. It gets its name from the market of the city of Pu-erh, in Yunnan Province, China, where this tea was historically brought for sale from the more remote regions of the countryside where the tea is actually grown and processed. ?Authentic Pu-erh are made with Yunnan’s famous broad-leaf tea tree varietals. Unlike white, green, yellow, black, and most oolong teas, which are highly perishable and have a short shelf life, well-made pu-erh teas may be stored and aged for years of enjoyment.
There are two types of Pu-erh: Raw (or sheng) Pu-erh and Ripe (or shou) Pu-erh; both types of Pu-erh Tea (Raw and Cooked) are made with Sai qing “sun-cured green tea,” which is processed by withering, roasting, rolling, kneading and drying the leaves in the sun. Sheng Pu-erhs are aged naturally over time; Shou Pu-erhs are ripened using a modern, intentionally accelerated aging process.
We start off with a very rare “white pu-erh” made with just the white buds of the tea plant. From Da Xue Shan Mountain in the Northeast corner of Yunnan Province, China, this tea has a warm, smooth-mouth feel followed by rich notes of honeysuckle sweetness and a dried vegetal hint in every sip. The agedness of this 2003 Sheng Pu-erh rounds out its full, complex flavor with a deep mossy note. Deeper and bolder than white tea, lighter and sweeter than most pu-erh. Full of flavor that will last for hours.
Next we move a bit deeper into the world of green pu-erh. This Yunnan large leaf sheng pu-erh has been naturally aged since 1995. With a savory, vegetal character reminiscent of a green tea, this tea also posesses the complexity and earthiness of an aged pu-erh.
Finally we feature our Royal Palace Shou Pu-erh, grown and processed by a cooperative in the Jing Mai Mountains of Yunnan, China. This pu-erh is made from the tender new growth of ancient tea trees that are over 100 years old. The tea liquor is smooth, malty, and deep with notes of bittersweet espresso and chocolate.
Each tea is meant to be re-infused to supply hours of ever-developing infusions. Take your time savoring the nuances that evolve with each infusion. We complement the teas with a trio of dark chocolates made by local chocolatier Dandelion Chocolate in the Mission District of San Francisco. Each chocolate is made with cacao beans from a single region: Ambanja, Madagascar, Elvesia, Dominican Republic, and Rio Caribe, Venezuela. The combination is exquisite, and something that must be tasted to be fully appreciated.
We now take reservations at our lounges so take the stress off by reserving your spot: Mission-Castro and Hayes/Zen Valley Tea Lounges.
These teas are available in limited quantities. Feel free to email or call to confirm availability.
Get your questions answered with The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Tea, a tea education series featuring Jesse Jacobs, Samovar Tea Lounge Founder, and Leo Babauta of zenhabits.net. It’s the easiest way to get into tea.
Ready to gear up with pu-erh? Check out our selection of handcrafted pu-erh tea and supplies.
Engage all your senses as you learn the art and practice of tasting tea. Enter your email and we’ll send you details to unlock Episode 2: How To Taste Tea The Samovar Way—FREE.
Searching for uniquely delicious tea-cocktails, I’ve tasted a lot of brews. Each tea adds distinct flavor and character. I love infusing our Jasmine Green for a floral burst, Tolstoy’s Sip for deep smokiness, and Earl Grey for citrus brightness. But my hands-down holiday favorite is a cold-brew infusion of vodka and our California Persian Black Tea. This magical combination of baby wild roses, citrusy bergamot and orange, and savory cardamom pods produces an amazing vodka tonic drink.
We call this drink “The Rosy Persian” and we brew it by the gallon for private events and parties.
Here’s to a happy holiday from me and the rest of the crew at Samovar Tea Lounge!