This Week's Obsession: Tea

Last week we received a wonderful book from our friend, Liz, called "The Way to Tea: Your Adventure Guide to San Francisco Tea Culture" by Jennifer Leigh Sauer. By a small coincidence, this week we are playing host to our friend, Stephen, who recently started up the website teaviews.com which is devoted to tea reviews.

On the recommendation of the book, we spent much of the week
taking tea classes, watching tea ceremonies, and sampling dozens of teas from around the world. On Sunday we took our tea at Samovar Tea Lounge in the Yerba Buena Gardens; on Friday we took a gai wan class at Teance in Berkeley where we learned how to properly steep and drink tea using the "lidded bowl" - the preferred method of tea drinkers since the Ming Dynasty; on Saturday we escaped the rain by spending the afternoon at The Imperial Tea Court at the Ferry Building where we watched a gong fu tea ceremony using yixing clay pots.

We can't wait to try a few other tea houses in the city and to take additional classes, but what we are most excited about is performing the tea ritual for our friends!