Hong Kong tea house

I am spending a few days in Hong Kong for work. Since it is different from my usual vacation of hardcore pre-planning, it is like a mini adventure trying to get around and figuring everything out myself at the spot.

I am probably extremely wrong as one coming from Jakarta, but here it feels like a mixture of Tokyo and NYC. I can figure things out as the layout of the department stores and passages are a little like Tokyo, but it is generally much wilder, faster paced (I swear the escalator moves at twice the speed!) and smells a little like NYC.

Just now, I finally found something serene and "Chinese". It was a little tea shop with many, incredibly imposing cans of tea. I am a tea freak, so I had to resist buying a package for every single friend I can imagine like I do when I go to Mariage Frères in Paris.

I ended up with 4 small packages of tea. One is called White Dragon Pearl (a jasmine green tea), another Tit Koon Yum Tea (an oolong tea but completely green), a flower tea with a big ball of green tea wrapping a flower inside (4 kinds - World Champion, Oriental Beauty, Seven Fairies, and Double Happiness), and some rose buds.

The shop person told me to start with Oriental Beauty. Not a bad move, it sounds. This shop was surprisingly customer friendly (nobody is friendly in HK!), and now I see why - background of the shop. It was very nice feeling to be right in the middle of a busy street but feel protected by the quietude of this tea shop, sipping tea from a teeny tiny Chinese cup.

Ki Chan Tea Co., Ltd.
http://www.kichantea.com/