seattle best tea

25 shvat 5781 

it has been about one year since i was last in seattle before covid hit. here is a very fun story about my first time at Seattle Best Tea. enjoy! 

this was my second visit to a real tea shop (my first can be found here) and it was another well known one ta boot.

 

my childhood best friend was visiting me on the west coast for the first time and i wanted to show him what a real me kinda day in seattle was (ie: eat dim sum, drink tea, smoke spliffs, go to the free Frye museum, and hang out in capital hill).

 

first stop was Harbor City for dim sum and needless to say, it was great. the food, the setting, the staff. all great. we just had the normal pot of green tea that comes with the meal but i tried to hold back because i wanted to save myself for our fancy tea tasting. 

 

(side note: one of the main reasons i don’t like cities is because there is nowhere to pee. i like to drink tea. i like to walk around. i like to hydrate. this all becomes very dangerous in certain cities especially if you don’t know the neighborhood and don’t have any pee spots. pause. oh come on, don’t tell me you don’t have your regular pee spots for when youre out and about. i have had multiple unpleasant near catastrophe episodes in seattle because of my love of tea and the city’s lack of public restrooms).

 

the place i had chosen for us to go was called Seattle Best Tea. it is well known for having good Taiwanese Oolongs and for having an owner who is very knowledgeable and very charismatic. 

 

when we walked in, we found the owner, Lydia, busy with a remodel of the store that was taking place that very day. half the flooring was out and her family members and contractors were trickling in and out working on the project. classic family business stuff. 

 

my awkward, shy, white self tried saying we were here to try some teas and that i was interested in some Taiwanese oolongs. apparently we are supposed to make an appointment (oops…) but Lydia took a break from the flooring project and came to talk to us about what we were interested in. instantly, out came a laser pointer and Lydia was showing us different famous tea mountains on a map of Taiwan that hung on the wall. Oh damn, hell yes, lets get into it.

 

Lydia asks what kind of tea we like and she soon realizes im the tea nerd and that my friend is just along for the ride. i told her that i like dan cong oolongs and sheng puer but am still new to tea and am interested in Taiwanese oolongs. Okay, she sees i kind of almost know what im talking about (emphasis on the kind of and almost). 

 

i have not mentioned the kicker. my friend is coughing. some serious, wet, deep chest coughs. this is February 2020. Lydia, while pouring tea during one of his coughing fits, points to him and says ‘look out, he probably has the Corona virus. here dirnk more tea its good for you!’ hahahaha. we all laugh. the reasons its funny is because of course he doesn’t have the Coronoa virus. we are in the US. theres no Corona virus here. oh, young, innocent, us… 

 

my friend was visiting me right after coming from Sundance where he was working and where he picked up this nasty ‘cold’ that he came to Washington with. later, while he was visiting me, and while i was brewing us nasty lungwort tea that we picked up from our hike on the peninsula to help nurse him back to health, i ended up getting sick and felt flu like for a handful of days. did i catch the Corona virus? i had my sense of taste and smell all during the time i was sick so hopefully it wasn’t covid. we will never know… now back to the tea.

 

eventually, Lydia has to tag back in the flooring project and to make bubble tea for some high schoolers who are lining up now that school has let out. Lydia turns to me and says ‘you know what youre doing. here, you brew the tea. take whatever ones you want off that shelf and try them.’ ummm, okay. after brewing a few different teas i finally settle on a medium roasted tie guan yin. it is my first good quality tie guan yin and im happy to have one of from the more old school/traditional style compared to the more ‘popular’ light jade versions. 

 

in conclusion, shouts out to Seattle Best Tea and Harbor City for being great and having lovely bathrooms!!!

 

xoxo,

atzei besamim

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