Week 3

Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending the opening of Smith Tea’s new cafe on 23rd and Glisan. I arrived just in time to see the ribbon cutting ceremony, though unfortunately I wasn’t able to get pictures of it. Afterwards, I had to get into a line that stretched down the block along 23rd in order to get my breakfast, and it was a good hour before I was able to enter--oh, the things I’ll do for bougie tea. Luckily, my spot wasn’t so far back that I missed out on their promotional tea tins, which they handed out to the first 100 customers. I was #59! When I did eventually get the Black Lavender London Fog and chia pudding I bought, it was so good. Very much worth the wait and the hole it blew in my wallet :”). The inside of the cafe had a clear and bright atmosphere due to their large windows, and they held several shelves of high quality tea on display and for purchase--definitely a place I’ll be returning to. The opening of the cafe seemed to make quite a little stir amongst my coworkers as well;
Dakota and his partner stopped by the shop on Monday before going to the cafe, then several other coworkers began looking it up throughout the week with plans to visit. We’re getting a little competition! Spicy.

Business was slow this week since the shop is currently feeling the full effects of the nationwide boba shortage. Remember the Suez Canal blockage from a few months ago? Yep, we’ve run out of most of our backstock of boba supplies and have few updates on when the next shipment might arrive. We’ve had to turn away many boba-lovers this week. On the other hand, that means I’ve had more time to practice making actual tea! The slower pace this week has helped me internalize the steps for each tea since I’m not rushing to get orders out. I feel like I can react pretty automatically to each kind of order except blended bubble teas (but almost all my coworkers hate using the blender), and I’ve made fewer mistakes with my chai’s this week! I still have to check brew times for certain teas, but I feel like I’m improving. Maybe next week I’ll make a little chart of everything to help me remember the steps and times involved in the different drinks.

I’ve also worked a little less this week in favor of researching a little more on tea in my own time. As noted before, I wanted to look into the biochemistry of tea. Instead of typing out my learnings, I hope this chart on the right helps summarize what I’ve learned. It’s a lot more information than I anticipated, and with a lot more nuance, but really interesting to learn. I didn't get as far as I had planned this week, but I'll be continuing my research into next week.

During my downtime at the shop, I’ve also been really inspired by “homecafe” videos that pop up around my TikTok and Youtube. These are videos of amateaur baristas making pretty drinks by themselves at home. Most of these span coffee and juice drinks, but quite a few involve tea as well! y.na__homecafe on Youtube and @thefrogcafe on Tiktok are my favorite channels to watch. There’s a KitchenKaboodle near TCT that I had the chance to stop by and buy some cups this week, so I took a shot at making my own video of a matcha latte on Thursday. The lighting leaves much to be desired, but I’ll be looking more into the creative side of tea-making next week as I get more accustomed to making basic brewed teas and lattes!

See you next week!

Tea of the week: #75 Dragon Pearl Jasmine

Honorable Mentions: #29 Coconut Oolong, #36 Tra Que Chai, #85 Tulsi Krishna (tastes like a medicinal soup, very unique!)