Teavana

If you enjoy drinking tea in an authentic fashion or enjoy real Japanese Tea Ceremony or Chinese Gung Fu Cha (Chinese tea) then stay away from this chain of stores.
I was called in by the tea sampler who called to me as i walked by to try the world’s most rare tea. Now unfortunately for this place, i’m a tea connoisseur. I know that lighters teas should be be in 155–170 °F temperatures and that mixed tea like Oolong is 165–175 °F and black teas closer to 185–190 °F and that you NEVER boil water (in chinese methods we call that dead water as it scalds the leaf and makes it bitter) So to sample the worlds most rare tea, a Monkey Picked Oolong should not be free. I first noticed that it was being prepared in a cast iron pot! That is a japanese method not chinese, it wont hold in the aromatics that make oolong so appealing… so first red flag. Second, it was sweet, wickedly so. They add nasty expensive sugars to their teas that actually are some of the unhealthiest ones that exist! All this while i’m being told its good for me! Bitter, the temp was way off.
So I walk in… everything is being prepared in cast iron pots! Regardless of the type of tea!!!
Tea is about culture, respect and history! It takes love and time! this isnt taking shots of well whiskey.
They do sell ceramic like a gei wan but they do not let you even sample tea with those. I asked about why they keep a candle lit under the cast iron and they say that it keeps it warm. That actually cooks the tea and makes it worse. The sugar just covers up the stale taste slightly so that you think you are getting exotic flavor. Now the salesgirl begins to tell me about their handcrafted artisan cast iron kettles made by at least 21 people (thats how sweat shops work by the way) I began to open the cast iron pot to inspect it and was told not to, i did and guess what I found… rust. that hand crafted item didn’t get sealed in the factory huh?
I tried the tea from that one and low and behold, rust is what you taste after realizing it. I told her she is mocking Chinese Tea by serving it in a Japanese Kettle but to not keep clean a cast iron kettle and serve it mocks the Japanese as well and that they should respect this tradition that has been going on for a good thousand years. The manager had come over by now and said that the Japanese liked the taste of rust in their tea! People believed in blood letting but you don’t see me cutting myself every time i have a headache now do you? So its safe to knowingly serve tea with rust in it? Don’t we have to goto the doctor when we step on rusty nails? Isn’t there a health risk there? She acted as though it was standard operating procedure.
Back to the worlds rarest tea… I asked how much of it i could buy, she said they had over 20 tins of several pounds of it in the back. I asked did everyone store in their chain and she said yes. So how many hundreds of stores have how many 20+ tins of the worlds rarest tea again? How is that rare? She couldn’t answer me.
The tea is over priced. The quality is poor for whole leaf or pearl. Lots of stems and bits which is another indicator of lack of freshness. I felt like i was being deceived most of the time and I was very insulted because I study the Chinese and Japanese culture and history and never have I been lied to so much about tea and how it was «supposed» to be prepared.
Its basically the McDonalds of Tea but only they dont try to sell you that their burgers are made of real wagu and that is the original and only real way to eat a burger…
I can’t believe they are allowed to say that making Chinese tea in a Japanese method is the right and original way. Never Again!

Had the maharajah chai tea, delicious! Can’t go wrong with this place. It can be a little pricey though so I think next time I’ll purchase the tea and make it at home.