They say there’s no proper tea in LA.

Who’s they?

    Those pilgrims of the West Coast Tea Trail. Flaneuring the 101. 

    Those leaf slurpers who are known at tea tables in Portland and The Bay. 

    Those too many Davids.

    They is me, I said it.

 

We are of course, as usual, talking about Chinese(/Taiwanese)-style tea here; Gong Fu Cha and Gong Fu Cha inspired tea spaces. We’re talking Puerhs and Oolongs, Greens and Whites, Reds and Blacks. 

We’re not talking about the Queen and her doilies. Nor are we discussing herbal infusions with healing properties. This isn’t Alice in Wonderland. This isn’t Boba Tea, Twisted Tea, or sleepybear cookietime tea with raspberry flowers. It isn’t Japanese tea or Indian tea either, though those are legit for real. 

We’re talking about real-ass teas, from the terraced slopes of Southern China and the tippy tops of mountains in central Taiwan. Expensive; Aged; Roasted. Brewed in little pots or Gaiwans. Complex tastes, better bring your sommelier: Earth and stone, fire and water, mist and mineral, the memory of the wind on the mountain top stored in the leaves. Chi Energy, if you’re into that sort of thing. 

So you’ve got your west coast Chinese and Chinese inspired tea culture places. With cool shops and tea-houses in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, the SF Bay Area, down to Santa Cruz, especially Santa Cruz. In any of those cities, and several little spots inbetween, you can walk into a tea house, pull up a stool to the special draining table, see old friends, make new ones, and get a tiny cup of some highly specialized camellia sinensis from someone in a flowly linen shirt who has built their whole life around this.

And then you hit Gilroy, roadside garlic stands whizzing by out your window, and it just stops. 

Why? 

I don’t know. It’s too hot for tea? Not enough Chinese immigrants, and all the hippies are out at doing yoga on the beach instead of sitting in a dark room.

Or maybe there is no one big reason why besides that no one in particular has put the love into opening a West Coast Chinese-inspired style teahouse in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Oxnard, LA, or San Diego. 

For years I have searched. 

And here is what I’ve found…..

I have found things that come close.

  • Santa Barbara has dipped its toe into the water, but never waded all the way in. 
    • Some of the yoga studios, particularly Yoga Soup and Divinitree have dabbled in having a tea corner.
    • Some local boys have dabbled in the business.
      • My man Brad had a cool thing going for a while called Yoko Tea. 
      • My dude Alex H. has a fantastic little tea biz going called Golden Mountain Tea Co. with some very good teas and if you hit him up you can probably meet for tea, but it’s not like a business you can just roll up to and walk in.
      • There’s a guy named James who runs a label called Far West Tea, but I don’t really know what his deal is.
      • If you’re at the springtime “Lucidity Festival” you’re going to see a ton of great tea setups.
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