Snap!

After just a few weeks hiatus, I finally made my way back to the tea shop where I sampled tea. The same woman was there working, and when I walked through the door, she immediately recognized me...and began speaking in Chinese. Ahh, just like last time. The only difference was that now I could count from 1 to 999 with her, but I decided against that activity.

Instead, I brought my camera along, took a few pictures, and sampled another type of black tea (same elaborate process). Here are some pictures of the shop:

This is a picture of the tea, and tea related paraphernalia..I'm not positive what dried orange slices, flower buds, etc on the top shelf are for, but I suppose they're tea embellishments...like ordering your drink with a dash of lime. "I'd like my tea with a dried orange slice."

This is the tea sampling process. Each and every piece of pottery on that table is used in the process of making one small pot of tea.

And this is the tea shop. I don't mean a part of the tea shop, I mean the whole shop. The shelves where the tea embellishments are to the right, the tasting table to the left, and that's the whole shebang.

In the end I bought, oh yes, this time I paid, for some shredded black tea as opposed to last time's unshredded black tea.

My current ongoing quest is to try every new kind of snack food there is. I'm in love with the corner store markets and convenience stores found on every block, and I'm in love with the new snack foods. Thus far, my favorites are the rice products -- crackers, gelatinous balls, all of them are delish. I also love the completely kinds of noodles that can be found that are made with rice. Actually, they're not so much noodles as sticky gooey shapes full of deliciousness. Lots and lots of deliciousness. And I'm really hoping I'll find some animal shaped noodles somewhere.