We're bringing tea back to Cicada in October - mark your calendars for Monday 10/17 and Monday 10/31!

This time, we are really excited to be able to offer a true sit-down, brew-it-yourself gongfucha experience. Gongfucha (工夫茶) means "tea that takes time and effort," and is a Chinese style of brewing and serving tea that developed in southern China during the Song dynasty, around one thousand years ago, and has since migrated and evolved. Between 11 am and 5 pm each Monday, we will have our full line-up of teas available for gongfucha, with unlimited hot water and unlimited seating time. Guidance available!

There will also be a smaller selection of teas available for tea by the cup (with unlimited re-steeps) and cold brews by the glass.

Please kindly note that we will not be offering any food or snacks, but you are very welcome to bring your own food (BYOF) during open teahouse hours.

Monday 10/17

Monday 10/31

Calling all tea & art lovers!

Broken Cup Teahouse will be pouring tea at the lovely honeyjones studio on Sunday, 7/10/22, 3-4:30 pm. This will be a free community event! No need for reservations. If you missed our 品茗 Pǐn Míng - Tea Tasting Series at Cicada in March, you'll get to experience it again at honeyjones! Come as you are, stay as long or short as you like.

I will be celebrating my birthday that day by doing what I love the most - sharing really good tea with others. It would be an honor if you would join me and Julie for a few cups of fresh and vintage teas, surrounded by her well-curated exhibition of paintings by local artists, and maybe find some tea or art gems to take home with you.

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We are delighted to be hosting another tea tasting at honeyjones studio! This time, it will be in honor of Joanne Simon's show of kintsugi-inspired monotypes as well as mid-autumn, in the lunar calendar. Yes, there will be mooncake. :)

There will be two seatings on Saturday, September 17-
2:00-3:00 First seating (6 people)
3:30-4:30 Second seating (6 people)

As a special treat, the artist herself will be in attendance at tea. Check out some beautiful samples of her artwork on her Instagram below, or on her website here!

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We're very lucky and excited to be having tea again at such a beautiful art gallery, together with art and tea friends.

Reserve a spot with the link below!

We're doing it again! Come down for dim sum and lion dancing, and stop by our table for bottled cold brews, gongfu teaware, tea & lavender bath salts, and of course, our vintage-specific curation of looseleaf teas from China, Taiwan, and Korea.

This Saturday 9/3, 10 am to 6 pm. Find us near the gate. :)

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Broken Cup Teahouse will be popping up at the Chinatown Main Street Summer Festival on Saturday, 7/2/22!

We will be featuring our all-new bottled cold brews lineup, in addition to our signature and seasonal curations of looseleaf teas.  Come by our booth early for free samples!

As always, you can follow our journey behind the scenes and witness our progress - one baby step at a time - on our Instagram page. :)

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Basics:

1. First and foremost, we cannot stress enough the importance of using good water. The taste of tea comes only from two things, leaves and water. Choose a water that is good to drink on its own. Most teas taste better with soft rather than hard water. We recommend using spring water, either fresh or bottled.
2. There are many methods and schools of thought when it comes to brewing tea. We use an intuitive approach, which focuses on getting to know a tea through time and experience, rather than a scientific approach of following precise brewing parameters. Water temperature can be measured by feeling the steam under one’s palm rather than a thermometer. Amount of tea leaf can be measured by looking at the space it fills up in your brewing vessel rather than a scale.

Note on temperature

We generally use only 1-2 approximate temperatures for brewing hot tea:

1. Very hot (~96-100 C) 🔥🔥🔥 We use this temperature for nearly all of our teas. Depending on the tea, we will make a slight adjustment to leave the lid on or off the teapot or gaiwan, for either more or less heat retention.
2. Hot (~80-90 C) 🔥🔥 We use this temperature only for green tea.

Hot tea is our favorite, but as alternatives, we also recommend:

1. Ambient (room temperature) brewing: Simply add the tea leaves to your water bottle. Use ~3 g of tea leaves per 500 mL water. Steep to taste (2-12 hours).
2. Cold brewing: Use 4-5 g of tea leaves per 500 mL water. Steep in the refrigerator to taste (6-36 hours).

Note on how much tea to use:

Most of our teas are screened via gongfu style brewing using a high leaf to water ratio and short steep times, which selects for complexity and endurance. We recommend, loosely:

• 3-7 g of tea per 100 mL gaiwan or small teapot for gongfu style
• ~3 g of tea per mug for "bottomless mug" or large
• ~3 g of tea per cup of water for Western teapot style

Again, we encourage exploration and getting to know a tea over time, so please take our guidelines as only a starting place. Happy brewing!

Broken Cup Teahouse will be popping up at Cicada Coffee Bar on Mondays in March 2022!!

We will be hosting tea tastings with various themes, with a focus on brewing high-quality, traditional teas from China, Taiwan, and Korea using tasty spring water. Each one-hour long tasting can accommodate up to 8 people, and will highlight a selection of teas as well as home-made, Asian teahouse-style snacks (all vegetarian and made from scratch). Please note that the snacks will be a sampler set, not a full meal.

Fine teas.
Spring water.
Home-made tea snacks.

Below is our program of events for 3/21 and 3/28. Click on the name to go to the booking site, or click here to see the full list with descriptions.

Monday 3/21

Monday 3/28

*It is recommended that participants come to these events on a full stomach.

If you would like to book any of our events for a private party OR if you are an establishment that would like to host us for a tea pop-up, please get in touch with us!

Past events

Monday 3/14

Monday 3/7

Growing up, I've never met anyone in my family or in my friends' families who owned their own business. My parents have worked 9-5 jobs their whole lives. Despite - or maybe because of - their constant reminders for me to focus on finding a secure, low-risk livelihood, I have consistently defied their wishes and actively sought out the roads not taken.

In my 20s, I worked as a high school math and science teacher in Taiwan and Jordan. I spent a year funemployed, backpacking through Asia (which is how I met my husband). I did a Master's program in Buddhism with no professional objectives at all. And throughout the last decade, I was falling in love with tea. At first, the encounters were few and far between; a gift from a friend here, a trip to a tea shop there. Before I knew it, I was hosting regular tea gatherings for upwards of 10 people in my tiny living room.

While in grad school, I was lucky enough to receive two grants that funded tea exploration trips, one in the Pacific Northwest, and the other in Yunnan, China. The more I learned, the deeper I tumbled down the rabbit hole. There was so much generosity, kindness, hospitality, and the spirit of friendship among all those that I encountered. There is a bit of scandal and intrigue as well, as any rich culture with a long history does. Above all, I realized, there's nothing as delightful as being able to taste a good tea. It is a thing of utmost beauty and charm, and utterly humbling. It makes me go, "Oh, I didn't expect to encounter beauty in this form, right here and now. How can something so humble yet so beautiful exist in this world? Am I worthy of this beauty?"

You know the movie, "Jiro Dreams of Sushi"? I started to have dreams about tea. Fantasies and visions about my future teahouse kept me awake at night. What kind of furniture and decor would I have? Could I make a little garden area outside too? How can I create a peaceful and elegant, yet comfortable and unpretentious setting? How can I cultivate myself through this undertaking? And most importantly, how can I share the beauty of tea with others?

I'm turning 30 this year, and it's the Year of the Tiger, good for making bold moves, they say. I wonder how my tea journey will continue to unfold, and what will manifest next...!