Hello Everyone!

In my country (The United States of America), it's commercial; you can get just about any type of tea you want, for the right price. In fact, you can get tea for free just walking out into some of the wilderness. :-)

As for pepole knowing how to properly drink tea, now wouldn't it be nice if parents taught their children that!

Aaron W. Hsu

i live in Madrid, Spain, and here we have some good tea shops, but most of them following the english standards for tea. so it's not usual to find, for example, compressed puerh bings, tuo cha and so... i've seen a couple of bricks, but decoratives ones...

also i didn't find tasting classes or appreciation classes.

kind regards, bonifacio barrio hijosa

I dont know the current state of affairs between your two countries but the Russians like Ceylon teas. I am close to a immigrated Russian population and hopefully one day would like to drink tea from an authentic Samovar. I shop their stores for tea but it is a close knit community. I could be mistaken but I think I remember a post about tea purchases in Sweden. Im watching a Japanese horror flick last night and one scene shows someone making tea in a kyusu. It never occurred to me before but you can only use the right hand to pour unless there is a left hand version. If you got questions we got answers.

Jim

The proper way for you to drink tea is whatever way you enjoy. What is improper are the snobbish control freaks who try to dictate what is proper for everyone else.

Greetings!

Welcome to the group. What part of Finalnd are you from? 30 years ago I went on a study tour of lower Finland and I must complement you on what a fine country you live in !! Ironically about a month ago I was clearing out my basement and in one box I found the Lapp Hunting Knife that I had bought while there.

Anyhow,I live in Maryland just north of Washington DC and West of Baltimore. While we have our share of tea shops, we certainly don't have an under current of Tea culture. One would think that with all the diplomats from all over the world and also having a very diverse population anyway that we would have more, but alas we do not!

Thank goodness for the internet as it really makes the world a much smaller place. I know even just 20 years ago we would have to go to Asian or English markets as the only places for fine teas. Some tea houses in our area have opened because of having access to a greater segment of the tea market that the net provides.

Once again welcome to the group and hope to see your postings again soon !

Mike Maryland, USA