Thursday, October 04, 2007

Tea Infusion Tea Bar And Cafe


Far be it from me to pass on a visit to a tea bar, at least not if I can help it. So when I found out that Tea Infusion Tea Bar and Cafe had opened in the new Tempe Marketplace, in Tempe, Arizona, I made a point to check it out.

Since I didn't have a camera on hand, you'll have to do with the power of visualization. Tea Infusion is located in a small, narrow space and is outfitted in a pleasingly spare modern style. As the name suggests, food is served, but I didn't pay much attention to that, preferring to focus on the tea.

The tea menu is reasonably wide-ranging. I personally could do without all the flavored blends, but to each his/her own. Menu categories include flavored black tea, chai, rooibus (?), herbal, mate, black, white, green, and oolong.

Among the varieties that caught my eye were organic Assam, Keemun, and Yunnan. Also, Darjeeling White Tips, Silver Needles, and White Ginger, the only flavored blend that stood out for me. I managed to narrow things down to Gyokuro or Dragonwell and ultimately decided to go with the latter. The menu describes it as "a First Grade version" of Dragonwell Requiem.

Which was quite good, actually, even though I got it to go, in a paper cup (groan) and it seemed to have been brewed with water that was too hot.

Not a bad experience, overall, though I found it odd that the serving sizes - in addition to small and large pots - were limited to 16 and 20 ounces.

Tea Infusion apparently doesn't have a Web site yet, but you can find out more about the Tempe Marketplace here.

DEAN & DELUCA .SALE
The Icon of the American Epicurean Experience


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6 comments:

Garrett said...

Mr. Lengeman,

Is there an e-mail address I can contact you at? I'd like to ask about adding your Tea Blog to my own blog's blogroll.

...

That's a lot of blogs.

Let me know.

Yaffi Lvova, RDN said...

Hello!

This is Lindsay, just creating a MySpace profile for Tea Infusion and came across your blog.
Glad to hear you had a pleasant experience at our shop and wanted to know more about some of your comments.
I can't find where to friend you!
Find me? The name is... Tea Infusion!

Thanks,
Lindsay

Steph said...

Thank you for this review! I have a lot of friends in the Tempe area and get that way myself occasionally.

Steph said...

PS - I'm going to link to this post from my blog. Thank you!

Unknown said...

Thanks for the nice review. You present a clear picture of the place.

Connor McSheffrey said...

nice, glad you enjoyed it, only been there a couple times myself but really liked it, I still don't know enough about teas to know what blends to get, would you recommend trying gyokuro or dragonwell? do you know of any tea shops around tempe/chandler? thanks!

@Lindsay
hey, I work as a freelance web developer, if you need a website i'd love to help out! :]