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Imperial Tea Court web site
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Web site
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San Francisco
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Reviewed By
Sue Dyson and Roger McShane
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Address:
San Francisco
Web Address:
http://www.imperialtea.com
Food Style:
Chinese tea
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This site has been upgraded significantly recently and is now a veritable treasure of information about Chinese and some Japanese teas.We like the site and we like visiting the tea house because it is one of the best places in the world for learning about tea. Take the venerable pu-erh for example. Many tea houses have one or two varieties. Here they describe over a dozen varieties of young and aged pu-erh.There is also a wealth of information about the oolong teas they have available. There are very good descriptions, for example, of the venerable Wu Yi Shan teas such as Bai Ji Guan and Da Hong Pao as well as other Fujian oolongs such as 'Old Bush' Shui Xian.Our biggest problem is that we want to order a sample of every one we read about!Another significant feature of the descriptions is the set of clear instructions for getting the most out of the tea in terms of preparation.The tea classroom has lessons where you can learn about such topics as the various types of tea leaf or the preparation of teas to the one where you can learn about Yixing tea pots. The lessons are brief but very instructive.Overall this is an intriguing site that is informational as well as practical in that you can order tea directly. There is also the opportunity to buy their tea through the Yahoo store.
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