Free tea is generally a good thing.

In my local tea shoppe if no customers are present I'll usually get a free cup of whatever the owner is drinking if he's there. Usually it is a sample from some vendor he is evaluating. About the only other time I ever get free tea is in a boutique shop that sells teaware and they'll have a little table with teabags and warm water. I'm finishing my last batch of Java tea. The owner won't stock anymore because he wasn't satisfied with the taste but I think decent enough. It became one of my favorites this year. It may prove to be impossible to get in the near future anyway.

Jim

Rufus T. Firefly wrote:

obviously

Rufus T. snipped-for-privacy@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com1/8/05

Might I ask: What did they serve it in? What kind of cup?

Michael

It was served in a cheap white porcelain K-mart variety European style tea cup with a plain white saucer. I suppose that's fairly standard. They served everything in those cups. I saw another customer "enjoying" some variety of oolong tea in the same cups. The shop was in Kichijoji and I can't quite remember the name, but it was very close to the station and not near Inokashira park. And I don't recommend it. But it was free.

Rufus T. Firefly Tokyo

Rufus T. snipped-for-privacy@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com1/11/05

I was asking because Ten Ren generally serves a *paper* cup of tea to their customers as they walk in. Seems a bit insulting to the customers and to the tea. Bad news. At least in your place they serve in porcelain, albeit inappropriately big and clumsy, or so it sounds from your description.

Michael

That's true. When I walked into the TenRen in Toronto they gave me some sort of 'plum' sweetened tea in a paper cup that was utter garbage.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

Ah yeah ? That must be because Americans would say something if they served in china cups without cleaning them between two visitors.

I'm glad if I can get free samples, as that make me save money (less need of buying teas just to have a sip and find that's not my taste) and I can buy the nice cups for me. This afternoon, I went to see if they were doing sales in the Chinese teaware corner of a department store. The corner had just disappeared, and will reopen when the sales are over. Grrr... Last month, a young lady desguised in Chinese princess was serving free tea with a beautiful gong fu set, elegant gestures, sweet smile, etc, you'd have thought you were in the novel "dream of the red room". I don't think that was a good thing : that was a cheap jasmine tea, and that yixing pot will probably smell of artificial jasmine flavor forever.

Kuri

I don't think I've seen a shop in America or China where they didn't at least rinse the cups between visitors with at least the first brewing of tea or boiling water.

What exactly does being American have to do with anything? I wouldn't particularly want to drink from a cup that someone just used if they had a cold or something, nor would most Chinese.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

My local shop has a collection of small, white, handle-less (I would say "green tea type") cups that are kept at the front counter for samples-of-the-day. They are actually WASHED between uses.

Granted, the shop isn't like Teavanna at Mall of America that gets a ridiculous amount of foot traffic from non-customers. They use paper cups.

Understandable. In China, they usually at least run boiling water over the cups or put them into an apparatus that keeps water nearly at boiling temps where they keep their cups when they aren't being used.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

Replace American by local if you feel better that way.

Kuri

not particularly; what exactly was the point of this original message?

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

I only meant I could understand they had chosen to give paper cup for the sample as for their average visitor that may seem cleaner than wet cups (just rinsed). That'd be the same in France where people are so obsessed with catching illnesses. Either way, no problem for me. If that was necessary, I'd do like in China, I'd bring my own cup to get free samples when I'm shopping for tea.

Kuri