Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Three for Tea
Tea drinking is a culture unto itself. Given that the tea-drinking culture
took hundreds of years to develop, the variety of leaves, brewing methods,
and implements makes the tongue-tripping lingo that the baristas spout
at Starbucks seem positively primitive. Because of its strong Asian-influ-
enced culture, San Francisco is an ideal place to dip your toes in tea, so
to speak, and two places in Chinatown are dying to steep neophytes in
some tea talk.
I personally know next to nothing about tea. But that's not the fault
of Peter and Alice at
Red Blossom Tea Company
(831 Grant Ave., at Clay;
%
415/395-0868; www.redblossomtea.com),
who are happy to provide
anyone who drops by with an education in a teacup, as it were, about the
leaf and how it's best served. The best thing about Red Blossom is that
even though it's been around for a generation, it's a hipper step above
some of the tourist traps in Chinatown that also push tea. These guys
know everything there is to know about what they sell, down to the alti-
tude of the farm that grew it and what the weather is like there. Some of
the other Chinatown tea shops just thrust a cup of hot tea at any visitor,
but Red Blossom seems to understand that anyone who walks in is a
potential tea convert. After all, some people spend hundreds or even thou-
sands of dollars on tea, and they do it here, where the selection is wide.
A second choice is
Ten Ren Tea
(949 Grant Ave., at Jackson;
%
415/
362-0656; www.tenren.com),
which is actually part of a Taiwanese chain
of tea shops with branches from here to New York City to Asia. That makes
the experience less personal than at Red Blossom, but some people are
(www.thescdsf.com);
Radio Africa & Kitchen
(www.radioafricakitchen.com),
started by an Ethiopian chef and dedicated to sustainable products ($20/main,
$6/appetizer); and
Cook with James
(www.cookwithjames.com),
masterminded
by skilled chef James Stolich, who does mostly French and Italian cuisine, but
only about every 2 months. If you want to gain invitations to any of these clubs,
or any other one that might have sprung up after the publication of this topic, let
the organizers get a sense of your views about food, quality ingredients, and cook-
ing—these groups are a bit snobby about their grub, but nothing opens their
hearts like discovering they've run across a like mind.
San Francisco residents like to appear cool (well . . . who doesn't?). And one of the
best ways to seem cool is to throw a party that not everyone knows about. They're
called
“underground parties,”
which doesn't mean they're necessarily held in BART
stations, but count on heavy dance music, a darkness that will put you in the mood
to dance, and some interesting venues. They're always changing and promoters are
constantly throwing one-offs, so it's impossible to say there is one place to get word
of happenings. It's also impossible to say with any certainty what the vibe will be,
since it changes with each gathering; ones held at Golden Gate Park during the day
will have a different feeling and mood than ones held, say, in an old warehouse in
