Tea For More Than Two

Edible Austin, is a gorgeously produced free magazine spotlighting local awesome eating possibilities for Austin foodies. This week they’re sponsoring Eat Local Week with two excellent goals in mind — to help “Central Texans to explore and celebrate the abundance of local food and to raise money for Urban Roots, a youth development program that uses sustainable agriculture as a means to transform the lives of young people and to increase the access of healthy food in Austin.”

We were psyched to find out that our great friend, Dr. Oolong, aka Jeffrey Lorien, was hosting an event as part of Eat Local Week. Dr. Oolong owns Zhi Tea along with his delightful partner, Candice Oneida. We ran a post about Dr. Oolong and his business this past summer. The man is the picture of passion when it comes to all things steeped, and he certainly gave us some fascinating tea insight when he visited us and served up flavors we had no idea existed.

Dr. Oolong and Candice threw a big, fat tea party at their rocking warehouse location on Bolm Road in East Austin. Not interested in being ferociously competitive with Austin’s other tea purveyors, the couple invited those folks to join them. As Candice put it, “We’re all here to raise the profile of tea to everybody.”

Inside the shop, attendees sat on floor cushions and enjoyed traditional Chinese Guzheng music played by a woman and a young boy. Watching and listening to them — especially seeing that little kid jam out on an old school instrument — was totally inspiring.

Meanwhile, outside, the tea was flowing and the tasty snacks were abundant. There were plenty of free samples, which we were not shy about testing out. Jesse Bloom, the chef/owner of Ecstatic Cuisine tempted us to not visit any of the other tables since he was handing out duck comfit with pomegranate syrup, hummus with sundried tomato pesto, mole chicken bites, and these gingerbread tea “sandwiches” topped with a dollop of — well, we’re not sure what it was but we are sure it was excellent. We grazed heavily and unabashedly before tearing ourselves away to check out the other booths.

Other tea and food folks offering up their own goods for our own good included the Formosa Art TeaHouse, Keria Teas, the Tea Embassy, Sesa Teas, Jade Leaves TeaHouse, The Barefoot Cook, SweetLeaf Tea, and the Steeping Room. There were countless gorgeous tea pots and other related tea goods and plenty of tea geeks on hand to enjoy all the offerings.

Dr. Oolong and Candice have decided they are going to be instrumental in transforming Austin into “a world-class tea destination.” They certainly took a nice big step in that direction Saturday.

See the Flickr Set for the Tea Party and our visit to Boggy Creek Farms