For the holidays I traveled to Nashville, stopping briefly in the Asheville and Knoxville. I used google and teamap to help me scout locations before my trip. I found three possible tea locations in Asheville, one in Knoxville and one in Nashville. All of the places I found on google and teamap were a disappointment. Two of the locations did not carry tea-just stuff, most of which was not related to tea--one place was no longer, one place served high tea but did not have a wide selection of tea and was more concerned with the art of Victorian High Tea than tea the drink.
I found the most interesting tea shop that I have been to in Nashville--and this one I found by word of mouth. The shop was mostly a kitchen wares store with a corner in the back piled high with tea bags--large bags full of loose leaf tea (see picture). I talked with the owner about tea and I tried to get him to show me some tea so that I could decide what I wanted to purchase--at this point I was in need of tea replenishment. At first he was reluctant to show me any teas--it was as though I first had to prove I possessed great knowledge of tea by telling him what I was interested. I could not just say that I wanted green tea, I also had to tell him the type of tea I wanted (gyokuro, sencha, dragonwell, etc) as well as the location I wanted the tea to be from. Once we got past this step and I started to decide on some teas, he warmed up to me (and, I suppose, me to him). I was still, however, skeptical of the way he stored his tea; in a disorganized fashion in plastic bags. It was also hard to decide on teas because the smell of plastic overwhelmed the smell of the tea. After smelling numerous teas, I decided on a Dragonwell from a freshly opened bag and a Tung Ting Oolong. I also received four sample teas when I purchased the Dragonwell and Oolong, the one I am most looking forward to is called "witch's brew" and is a long leaf pu-erh.
This store was a welcome find--and the only one of the two places worth writing about--after being disappointed in Asheville and Knoxville. I do, however want to share the rest of my tea adventures in Asheville and Knoxville.
Asheville is a cool city with lots of good coffee shops, it however lacks a shop dedicated to Tea--in the sense that a shop carries a wide variety of tea and its primary concern is tea, the actual brew. Below is a photograph of the one place there that billed itself as a tea room and actually served tea (there are at least two other "tea rooms" in Asheville, one sells clothes, the other jewelry and other assorted house gifts).
I do not have a photograph of the tea shop in Knoxville because I called them beforehand and asked them what tea they carried. The answer, "ummm... I don't know..., Earl Grey and Constant Comment." This sentence along with the fact that it was called Applecake Tea Room is why I decided to skip this establishment.
The last tea shop I visited was in Charlottesville on my return from Nashville. I have been here many times, and it deserves its own seperate post.
Tea shop in Asheville
bags of tea piled high in Nashville
