I recently discovered that there was a tea place not far from me (oh happy happy joy! :P). On top of that, they offer one of my favorite teas : Sencha Kyoto Cherry Rose
Once I run out, I can get The Sante (rather than run to The Salon on St-Denis).
Anyways, following the Filipino Independence Day celebrations at a nearby park, a friend and I decided to check the place out. It's located on Decarie, near the corner of Queen Mary on the western side, in a little basement space. They have quite a selection of tea (as can be seen on their site), as well as quite a bit of tea ware.
If you want to buy tea, you can browse through the catalague (available in both english and french). Each tea is described quite in-depth, making you want to try all of them. The store attendant was a man of eastern european descent (though, he may be the owner, I'm not sure) and he was very helpful letting us smell any of the teas we wanted and also giving suggestions about which tea to try.
My friend settled on 50 g of Young Pu-erh and also 50 g of a Oolong for her grandmother.
I got 50g Blue Mango Green tea, 50 g of Ti Kuan Yin Slimming, as well as one of those metallic tea "bags" so that I don't have to make a whole pot everytime I want to make loose leaf tea.
I would definitely suggest checking the place out and a good chunk of the teas are decently priced and won't set you back much. There were others I wanted to try, but my cupboard is already overpopulated by tea :P
Now, as for the teas I bought:
Blue Mango Green Tea: I had no idea there was such a thing as blue mangoes. But, I am a definite fan of mangoes. In fact, I'd say they are probably my favorite fruit of all time. So, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to 1) sniff it (it smells like awesome) and 2) buy it.
The tea definitely has a fruity flavor (doesn't only smell fruity, like some teas), and the green tea used with it is light enough and doesn't overpower the fruityness. They say it makes good iced tea. I'll have to try it out.
This tea gets:
out of 5
Because while I like it, it's not *the* best tea I've ever had, and not everything can get a 5 ;)
Organic Slimming Ti Kuan Yi: I generally like Oolong tea (though I generally like tea...so, not a big surprise). It has a very fresh scent and expands quite a bit (though, it does not compare to the amount of expansion created by an Oolong a friend brought for me from China). You can infuse it at least twice. It tastes like a standard oolong, but the reason I bought it is because it's supposed to be slimming :P
So, for taste, it's average. But, I can't give my full rating yet. I have yet to see its slimming effects :P
So let's say:
out of 5.
We'll see how this experiment turns out.
Now onto Café Dervish!
I've passed by this place a few times. It's located on St-Denis in between Sherbrooke and Ontario. They specialize in homemade Masala Chai (And apparently persian aphrodisiac tea? I just read that on the site, hah!). Anyways, I had been meaning to try it out for a while. After Tam Tams on this same Sunday, my friend and I were hungry and also had no actually had any tea to drink that day. This had to be remedied and so we headed to Dervish.
It's a cute, little place. It serves both tea and food, both of which were premium. We were greeted by a canadian lady who lived in Britain all her life, but studied french and german, too. So it was quite cool because first she says in french "would you like to try the tea of the day - it's a ginger chai, a bit spicy?" and then she heard us talking in english and she switched to english and there you hear the accent. We're like, oh :o Anyways, she was very nice and spoke to us about the advantages of couch surfing.
We both ordered their "famous" Jamaican sandwich. Now, let me say, I understand why it's famous. Imagine 2 pieces of Naan bread, with jerk spices spread on each side, plantains, fake turkey (the place is entirely vegetarian, by the way), lettuce and melted cheese (optional, for those who are vegan). Dude man, I've never had plantains in a sandwich before. After that, I started :D
In addition, the ginger chai was superb. It's just about the only tea I allow to have milk and some form of sweetener in (apart from Orange Pekoe - but that's because otherwise, it has a rather uninspiring taste). I look forward to going back there again and trying another one of their homemade creations :)
So, Cafe Dervish gets
out of 5
for their great sandwich and amazing tea!
In other news, Hour.ca did a review of a place called David's Tea located on Mont-Royal (about a 10 minute walk from the metro). There is another location on Pare. In addition, there are Toronto locations and one will soon be opening in Vancouver (huzzah - expanding in the 3 big Canadian cities)
It was given a good review and so I'll have to pay a visit sometime in the (hopefully) proximal future. Their site also provides health information about different types of teas.
