art-kitkat

transit enthusiast x furry trash

  • he/him

hey! i'm ben. im an ott that lives in the PNW that draws furries and pokemon, and talks about trains/transit way too much (i even work on trains!).

here you will find rambling, rechosts of memes, and the occasional art post. i don't really do NSFW stuff but i'm careful to flag anything that might be!

dont be a stranger. or do. i don't care. just bring fish 🦦

THIS USER LOVES BUIZEL!!!THIS USER LOVES CHESPIN!!!THIS USER LOVES TYPHLOSION!!!


hi! im starting a thread of these to catalog stuff i do at the tea stores around town, uh, because, i guess i can. i will be giving this the somewhat sarcastic tag #tea saga so you can mute it that's not your... cup of tea.:eggbug-uwu:


anyway.

there's this cute loose-leaf tea shop run by an old chinese lady and who i belive is her nephew in international district. i stop by there somewhat frequently cus they have dirt cheap loose leaf tea that's pretty decent quality -- not as good as the stuff up the road, but they're a) cheaper and b) much nicer and also c) the lady will happily sit with me for hours on end and chat while serving me cup after cup of tea, and will let me sample literally every tea they have for sale

so today i stopped by and after a few cups together i noticed this super cool yellow tea set with, like, qing-dynasty style dragons all over it. An example of the tea set pulled from a similar result on Amazon. Yellow tea cups and a pot with a Chinese dragon painted? printed? across each cup. i was waffling on whether or not to purchase it cus it was, like, $90 all together, and her response was, i kid you not, "Pah! I don't care if you buy it. I just like drinking tea."

i might be in love

also we started chatting in mandarin after we both realized we spoke it (i thought she was cantonese lmao) and she said my name was pretty so she wrote it out in nice-ish characters and gave me two free pucks of pu-erh to sample.

anyway if you're in seattle go check out vital tea leaf


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in reply to @art-kitkat's post:

Cheap-but-good: Vital Tea Leaf. They've got two locations, one right by the Chinatown Gate and another by the post office. The old lady who gives out free samples is usually at the gate one. You can also pay for a pot and snacks and just chill at the tables like a regular tea house.

The nicer but pricier one: New Century Tea Gallery, just to the east of Hing Hay Park. Very, very good oolong there, but, also, like, twice the price. A real ouchie. They also didn't seem very excited to do samples.

If you like iced tea / boba / milk tea, there's also Seattle Best Tea (also in U-Dist now!) which is the best you're gonna get in International ever since Young Tea moved to Wallingford. YT also has very good loose leaf but they're a little pricey and also annoying to get to if you don't live in the area.

Also good for tea houses: Republik in U-Dist. Very chill sit-down place but I wouldn't buy my leaves from there. Just a nice place to relax cus they'll do infinite refills on your pot if you ask for it.

FINALLY: Miro Tea in Ballard, right by the Sunday farmer's market, is probably one of the best tea houses I've been to in the city. It's definitely got the white guy hipster vibe but they're serious about serving good tea. I don't like their loose leaf as much as the other places (and it's pricey!) but if you're there for a drink it's great. (If you want loose leaf in Ballard, better to go to Floating Leaves, if you can ever catch them open. Their hours suck.)

Hehe. Oh I know tea places generally in Seattle. I literally just bought some very nice teas from Miro last week hahaha. Never been to Vital Tea Leaf I don't think though. I'll have to check it out.

But thank you for the long response. I await your further teaventures!