People at this forum may find it interesting that Chinese tea and Chinese tea culture is becoming very trendy in Moscow and SPB and in Russia in general. The contrast with traditional Russian black tea culture of the past for me after almost 20 years of absence was staggering. While "normal" people still drink black Indian and Ceylon as their everyday tea, tea shops, tea room and tea clubs with great choice of Chinese, Japanese and other exotic teas are becoming more and more popular and increasingly expensive.
I have not been in tea clubs in Moscow, which are more "opulent" and expensive than the ones in SPB, but visited two in SPB, my former hometown. They call themselves "Tea Culture Clubs" and are quite small and very Spartan from the point of view of furniture and space. You drink tea sitting on the floor on mats or pillows in a space that is created by hanging bamboo mats which divide a room 300 sq.ft into several such "tea spaces". Its quite minimal. The tea selection is quite the opposite. The menu or "tea card" consist of several pages and probably about a hundred or more teas, almost exclusively Chinese, most of them oolongs. The prices are "per person" and vary from couple of hundred rubles (27 pub /USD) or 7-10 USD to tens of thousands of rubles or several hundred USD. You can drink it any way you want but the common way is gong fu, which you can do yourself or it will be performed by the host. The price is the same. Gong fu sets include everything, quite good quality, quality yixing, wenxiangbeis and pinminbeis, chahai, tea tools, everything, including yixing "toys" - pigs, toddlers, bulls, etc.
There were three of us and we had two teas in about 2 hours and the check was for USD 2,600 (almost USD100 or $30/person). We tried the cheapest oolong (dull and old) and a "value" one which was average-to-dull. Keep in mind that an average salary in SPB is probably USD 300/month. Also, you can get quite a good three-course meal in a decent restaurant for this money.
I performed the gungfu myself both times, but was not able not to overhear the talk over the gungfu performed by the host next "cabin". The introduction to Chinese tea, the description of gongfu, the comments he was making were a mix or "tea religion", very superficial knowledge and spiritual marketing. I was told that some clubs in Moscow host very knowledgeable people, have calligraphy classes and even publish their own tea books but still, too many buddhas, "spiritual" music, incense, "guru"talk.... It looks like my former countrymen need some kind of a church atmosphere to part with their money more easily. It was sad. One thing I liked, though - there were no food at all, not even "tea snacks". Mate is also gaining popularity fast and is crazy expensive (about 20 times what we pay here in an ethnic Latino shop).
The popularity of these tea clubs is skyrocketing. I expect (and was asked to assist, but declined for now) the new generation of tea clubs with more business atmosphere will spring up in a very near future. The knowledge will increase and most probably the Chinese business people will start paying attention and open such clubs in Russia. As of now (according to my knowledge) these clubs are owned by Russian tea admirers.
Tea shops (which are numerous) selections are quite opulent, prices about three to ten times higher than here in the US, salesgirls are slow and their knowledge is superficial. However if the owner happens to be present, you will have a chance to talk to a very knowledgeable, quite sophisticated, very interested in tea individual.
Russians I talked to would express immediate and very vigorous interest in things tea as soon as you start such conversation. Tea is definitely "in" and "hip". There are several good tea web sites where very knowledgeable people share their experiences and even get together once in a while (we are talking people traveling hundreds of miles for three-4 days of tea drinking) bringing unbelievable quality teas with them and having such "tea happenings" at least once a season. Some of these web sites have very large and deep knowledge databases on all aspects of tea. The tea web site of a small private university in Pskov - tea.volny.edu is one of them where yours truly posts quite a lot.
Sasha.