Tea at the bar

Posted on 17 January 2011

Spending the week in London for the Burgundy en primeur tastings reported on in the last three posts, I took the time to visit Teasmith, a tea boutique-cum-tea bar located on the revamped Old Spitalfields Market off Liverpool St.

It’s by all means a pleasant and engaging place for the tea-oriented. There’s a neat shop offering maybe 30 different teas from white to black to puer, sensibly priced and available in 20 and 50g packs, sourced from the good places around: there are Korean greens from Eastteas, Taiwanese oolongs offer a good insight into the treasures of Teamasters, while the older puers are from Essence of Tea. There also is a choice of (rather expensive) brewing equipment including yixing pots at £90 apiece, and a seminar room where tastings and classes are held weekly. Most importantly, there’s a cleverly designed bar where a reasonably controlled gongfucha is operated for teas you can sample in situ – selected from a very good list of 25 ‘bins’ plus a reserve list with e.g. 1989 oolong (@ £35) or gyokuro (£12; these prices are per leaf, meaning you can have also a series of infusions).

If you can manage the impossibly uncomfortable bar stools it’s a very relaxed place to have quality tea. I started with a good green Biluochun, mildly cerealy, absolutely typical, brewed perhaps stronger than I’d have, but with a good finish and not expensive at £3.50. I followed with a rolled oolong from Taiwan, hitherto unknown to me, Bilushi recommended by the young Latvian lady as one of her favourite. Infused with slightly cooled ~90C water in a small gaiwan on maybe 3.5g of leaf, this started off well with a good fruity, honeyed cup, typical for a summer/fall crop, and a spectacularly fruity smell to the infused leaves but continuing a little flat and vegetal-drying.

On the next day, taking advantage of the closed Spitalfiels market on Saturdays, I had a lengthy and truly enjoyable discussion with Chiara, a knowledgeable Italian who’s been in the tea business for several years. This time I ordered the 2003 Wild Tree Yiwu sheng puer (which I understand is sourced from Teamasters) and Chiara offered to brew the 2009 Yiwu alongside to compare. The latter is a custom pressing for Teasmith, with large leaves and a very energetic green un-oolonged profile. As clean as it is, it came across as a little boring and flat in the initial brewings, picking some leather and spice later but never really thrilling (perhaps it just needs to age). The 2003 Yiwu proved more interesting, on the whole. Initially I found it quite young, with a straightfoward if well-pitched green tobacco note. Quite unbitter, it picked some good kick in the 4th infusion (my favourite). We reached a respectable 7th infusion at 1’40” with a light but pleasantly mentholly, vivid tea.

The puers develop slowly at Teasmith (I think partly because of the automatic water heating system on tap where the water is more likely to come out at 90C than a proper 100C; this helps me accept the longish brewing times operated here, though I’d definitely shorten them slightly for oolongs) and I’d encourage anyone to go up to 5 or 6 brews to get the best of them.

Teasmith is a gorgeous concept. A tea bar where you can casually sample four or five different teas or just spend an hour over a puer in much the same way you would over a bottle of wine is just brilliant. It takes the formality out of the dreaded table-service ‘afternoon tea’ experience and allows you to focus fully on distinctiveness and quality. I’d really be happy to pop in daily to have proper tea instead of having espresso at the bar.

But apparently there is some resistance to the concept and though a good two dozen people cruised through the shop while I was there on Thursday noon, 75% of them asked for tea with milk, Earl Grey or chai. It will just a lot more grassroots education before the larger masses start appreciating the concept. But of course that’s not just up to Teasmith.

See here for a review of Teasmith on the Half-Dipper blog.

Disclosure

I paid for all my business at Teasmith (three teas at the bar, and three bags of tea take-away), apart from the infusion of the 2009 Yiwu puer which I was offered (I didn’t mention I was a blogger).