The man who started it all twenty years ago is Mr Chua (蔡å�‹æ½®), and as luck would have it, he was on hand today, at the Takashimaya basement shop. He gave us an excellent exposition of Chinese tea that ranged from his mistrust of all things from mainland China (he believes that they are not above add dye to their tea leaves to make them greener, and that they use toxic glazes for their porcelain) to how he's given up stocking Pu-erh tea 普洱 made by Yunnan qizi 雲å�—七å� and now carries tea cakes made by lesser known plantations. He is passionate about tea, very knowledgeable and a real pleasure to talk to.
My main grouse is that the staff at most of the teahouses are not very knowledgeable about the teas that they sell: if Mr Chua had not been there today, I am not sure the experience would have been so positive. I have visited the teahouse at Takashimaya on a number of occasions and was on every occasion unimpressed. Yet on this occasion, Mr Chua was able to give sensible advice about the tea on sale. The Fenghuang dancong 鳳凰單� we bought (a dark oolong from Chaozhou 潮州) has an amazing lychee scent: no complaints there at all.
The store that is best laid out is the one in the basement of Takashimaya. The teahouse at Suntec City is housed in a cramped glass hut on the ground floor beneath the escalators. It seems to be more concerned with selling porcelain than with selling tea. The shop at Bugis Junction is no more than a counter, and I have the same complaint about that shop.
æ–°åŠ å�¡èŒ¶é¤¨ Chinese Tea House
Ngee Ann City
391A Orchard Road
Block A, Takashimaya
Department Store Basement 201-6
Singapore 238873
Tel: +65 6734 0965
Bugis Junction
230 Victoria Street
Seiyu Singapore, #B-27/28
Singapore 188024
8 Raffles Avenue
Esplanade Mall, #02-02
Singapore 039802
Tel: +65 6423 1013