Thankfully, lately I've developed somewhat of a cabin fever when it comes to preparing tea; bored with the flavours I have, and the routines of preparation I commonly go through to prepare a decent cup, I was hoping for something new in the way of tea. And I found it in the most unexpected and apprehensive of places. In a duplex, in a new suburb, beside other kinds of businesses in duplexes in that same suburb supported by nothing more than a flimsy banner over the entrance saying "Tina's Tea" followed by a phone number. Not even a website (Do you see what consumer culture has done to me? Not even the little guy, who in this case has excellent tea kung fu, has a chance at business because I equate simple advertisements or signage as sign of poor quality). Yeah, yeah, I know. Never judge a book by its cover. Well, luckily, a while ago, while perusing forests for morels, I came across this humbling, now coveted tea cul-de-sac.
Tina's Tea, formally known on the shop's business card as Tina Tea Room, is an attempt at giving patrons a proper cup of tea, for a reasonable cost, in my own tea drinking opinion. Because anyone can dunk a bag in boiling water or drench leaves with the same; but it takes a special someone to do it properly- to know the kind of tea, the proper temperature that accompanies its preparation and the proper time it needs to steep. Let's face it, people are lazy. I'm lazy, you're lazy, we're all lazy in our own right, and unless you like doing something as mundane as preparing tea, you're not gonna do it right. But you're gonna let someone do it for you, provided the price is right, and the tea holds its own kind of flavour. Not chalky cardboard bag flavour. That and the fact that unless you were raised by Asians in the desert, or are have some kind of tea aficionado grandfather, or like to read extensively in order to quench your own voluptuous obsessive compulsive perfectionist tea yearnings, you probably don't know how to make a proper cup of tea. Again, probably because you don't care. That's why Tina Tea Room works well for both kinds of consumers: for the kind that appreciates the art of a good cup of tea, and for the other kind that likes tasty things and impressing those they dine with with tasty things (Y'know? Dudes that take out dudettes and try to impress them with "sophisticating" things. That scenario could certainly play out in this case).
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With its bashful beige walls and three meager wicker tables, Tina Tea Room is a more than intimate space. It's a testament to the devoted few that still wish for the experience of a proper tea and a residue of what's left of the tea shops that catered to the hundreds that frequented them at a time during China's folkloric past. Yup, I was a regular 孔乙己,making whatever due I could through poor academic work, wearing poor clothes (a symptom of expensive academics), and regaling my drinking compadre with maxims of Confucius. Only instead of booze, I was drinking tea, and instead of peas, I was eating a bowl of dried cranberries and apricots, admiring the mess of old lady Victorian trinkets, porcelain waterfalls, multiple origami cranes, plastic plants and Chinese charms that were placed tenderly around the dining room. A humble attempt at decoration, which not only made the experience seem more intimate, but a sincere expression that our proprietor, Tina herself, was doing her best to make hers a legitimate, serious business. And like I've said many-a-time: I've come to expect the most authentic food establishments to neglect appearance and 'proper design' in favour of putting food first. Of course, that just may be my own cognitive dissonance. But in my experience, interior has never been the thing of any small mom and pop's Chinese/Korean/Vietnamese restaurant in my opinion. Weezee legend holds it's only a cover for mediocre eats- or tea in this case. There's no need to play the association game in a humbling tea shop. If you want to associate a physical space with your taste and cultural capital, save it for some fancy five star restaurant, comrades. You won't get it here. What you will get however, is dedicated service, a woman who doesn't let your cup run empty (which is a feat for the cup sized tea pot you're given), and the experience of feeling like you're being spoiled by an older, babying aunt serving tea- your assuming, attractive, Chinese aunt serving tea. I certainly wasn't complaining, not in this intimate space; not with the 3 Japanese girls giggling sweet nothings about Justin Bieber in Japanese beside me; not with the constant bowls of dried fruit (something Tina gave my party and I on the house- a cheap 2 dollars on the menu).
It wasn't all this simple however; we essentially started our visit tip-toe-ing in, slowly opening the door, asking if it was alright to enter, and taking our shoes off before climbing the stairs to our seats. Tina was more than happy to accompany us; after given a menu, and unwittingly given a pot of Tie Guan Yin (an oolong) tea, we were well on our way to figuring out what kind of teas the place served. This was partly my fault however; I was somewhat dismissive when asked what tea we'd like to drink, assuming the host was fluent in English and would riddle the menu off from memory. Ah, the joys of food and language barriers. I've lost a small fortune through these kinds of misunderstandings; but, they were delicious misunderstandings nonetheless.
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Tina Tea Room's tea selection is very limited; however, that may either be a symptom of its newness, or Tina's seriousness in regards to tea, brewing tea, and drinking tea. What is offered for drink is rather high in quality and consisting of the purest kinds of teas. I say pure in respect to teas that aren't made up of filler like fruit and useless herby flavours, but strictly leaves and different levels of fermenting processes. That's why a 1.5 litre pot can run a patron from 10.00 to 20.00 dollars, which equates to 5 small pots of tea in one sitting. That said, it's sufficient between a small group of two or three, or someone who's ready to get their drink on. One can even purchase a single cup of Long Jing (Dragon Well) tea for 2.00 dollars. But only Long Jing. Nothing else. I would have liked to see more options in that regard, but I'm sure there's a particular etiquette and reasoning I'm unaware of. Our own tea had a trace of the bitterness any drinker would hate to find in their brew. Still, being unfamiliar with oolongs, I was unsure if that was a characteristic of the tea itself, or a miscalculation on the brewer's part. If there was one good quality of the tea being served to us it was that it never lost its strength, and that was probably a result of being given fresh brewed tea constantly, which worried my company and me at one point because we were confident we were racking up a large bill. However, our being first time customers, we were pleasantly surprised by our cheap bill of 10.00 dollars, even after all the tea we drank and the excessive amounts of dried fruit we were given to snack on, not to mention the some odd 10 sweet red bean spring rolls we were given to try- another compliment of the place's wonderful host. Tina was the most accommodating gastronome I had ever met, and it did this heart good. She even refused our generous tip by the time we ended our stint. She even left the tea room several times, leaving us alone like two good big boys, while she cooked in her kitchen basement and we listened gingerly to the sounds of her sizzling wok through the floorboards (okay, not floorboards- good, wood paneled flooring. I'm a sucker for metaphor though and literary romance, you all know that). Being left alone as two strangers in an empty tea room in the late afternoon didn't feel strange at all, but rather, like home.
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And if you're feeling a bit peckish, no worries. Tina Tea Room plays well to the tea time dynamic by offering snacks for hungry customers. Be forewarned however, these things are not meant as substitutes for meals, though I'm sure you could buy enough to fill you up. But I am a puritan, and believe in a bourgeoisie ethos, and thereby believe (in my own opinion) that one as a frequenter of tea shops should come to converse and appreciate the art of fine tea and merely nibble on the foods offered. The menu is pretty scattershot, but very cheap for the amount of food you're given, and I say take advantage of this before business picks up and portions become smaller. I always assume the worst under the shadow of late capitalism, especially in the food industry where things on average reach a markup of 60%. But that's boring! Let me tell you about the oddities that run the menu of Tina Tea Room; there are the things that one expects in theme with a tea room run by a Chinese woman like dried fruit, fried dumplings, and sweet spring rolls, and the things that makes one turn their head and have a what the *f moment like French fries, chips and cheetos, and chicken nuggets. But, those three options are as weird as the menu gets. These, as the Chinese say, xiao chi 小吃 (lit. small eats, col. snacks) run from a mere .50 cents to 3.50; and ironically the only thing that is 3.50 is the chicken nuggets. All very affordable, all dwarfed under the menu by the tea, which as far as I'm concerned is how it should be. Otherwise, those strange menu options are attempts to gauge an audience and are very liable to change, I just hope more people visit so I have a place to go and drink. You know my history of eating at places that don't last longer than two months, six at most. And Tina Tea Room is definitely a place I wouldn't mind visiting at least once a week. The tea may be limited (for now) but the company certainly isn't.
Bill: One pot of tea (1.5l): 10.00 dollars
Tina Tea Room
F33-619 Wild Ginger Ave.
Waterloo, On
N2V 2X1
Tel: (519) 279-4465
Cell: (519) 573-8368
Email (that's right, email): hym199732@hotmail.com
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