City Repair's T-Horse, or mobile tea house

Note: This post was edited on Jan. 20, 2007. Hotlinked image(s) were removed. Follow the link(s) to the image location(s).

If you are in Portland, Oregon today, tomorrow, August 7, 10, 14, and 21, check out the T-Horse, City Repair's mobile tea house. City Repair works with neighborhood residents to create anew or recreate community gathering places. The T-Horse was one of the organization's first projects. The T-Horse is comprised of a truck bed, 20-foot wings, and pillows and rugs. The mobile tea house goes to parks and other open spaces to serve tea, a gregarious and neighborly activity!

Tea Shop - Imperial Tea Court

I made my first visit to the Imperial Tea Court with a girl friend. Recently, I drank tea at the tea court with my husband. The tea is consistently excellent. The food was different and better the second time around. The photographs in this post are from my first tea at the tea court.


Tea #1
Tea: Gaiwan service with the Red Envelope Blend (2nd photo, right); Aged Puerh (3rd photo)
Food: shrimp dumplings with jasmine tea (3rd photo); vegetarian spring rolls

Tea #2
Tea: Gaiwan service with two kinds of puerh - Superior; Preferred
Food: vegetarian pot stickers; vegetarian steamed buns

Tea companies on the rise

Mike Spector's Wall Street Journal article reports that there are 2000 tea houses in the U.S. and tea sales were $6.2 billion last year. Tea became as "convenient as bottled juice and soda" with the advent of Snapple Iced Tea.There are four exceptional tea companies : Tealife which operates Tempest Tea in Dallas; TeaGschwendner, a German company with its first U.S. store in Chicago; Foodx Globe, a Japanese company with its first green tea bar - Koots - in Seattle, and Teavana based in Atlanta with 50 stores nationwide.

TeaGschwendner, Chicago
Tempest Tea, Dallas
Koots Green Tea Shop, Seattle
Teavana locations

Tea rooms and tea objects

Rooms

Source: Way of Tea (Cantile 1971)	Top-left: image from The Tea Room (Kakuzo 2000) Top-right: The Totsutotsu-sai tearoom at Urasenke, from Left: A mizuya (prep area) at Urasenke

Objects

Left: Small tetsubin (iron kettle) used on the tea tray Top-right: Ashiya tea kettle Bottom-right: Wooden faro (brazier)	Top-left: Famous Kenzan bowl Top-right: Hagiware bowl Bottom-left: Ko Hagi bowl - Bottom-right: Taishugohon ware (region of Korea)
Source: Way of Tea (Cantile 1971)	Raku bowls Top-left: Keinyu, 11th generation Top-right: Konyu, 12th generation Bottom-left: Hagi style Bottom-right: Urasenke Grand Master Tantansai's design