January Tea of the Month (belatedly)- Russian Flower

Here we are in yet another year and a potential dozen more teas for the year. I realize I fell a little short last year so that there were not twelve teas. This just gives me a goal for this year. This is, I think a strong start for the year.

Before I tell you about the tea, let me set the context. I purchased this tea at a very special tea house here in Shanghai. I read about this tea house early last year, and as intrigued as I was by the write up, there was always a reason why I never made it there: I forgot about it, I would rather go with a friend, it was too hot to drink tea.... While wandering around the French Concession on a self guided walk with friends, we happen to pass right by it. That seem to imprint the shop on my brain and I made a plan, one Sunday afternoon, to while away a couple of hours while JCS had his language lesson.

The two story building was constructed in the 1930's and has been restored beautifully. It is owned by Florence Sampson (Song Fang is a Chinese translation of her name) who opened the store so that she could explain tea culture to foreigners in Shanghai. Each tea is brewed to perfection at the counter and brought to the table in a lovely blue teapots, with the logo of the shop (which you can see in the photo above) and covered with a colorful Chinese print cosy.

While they have 20 black blended teas from France, they also offer around 40 Chinese teas. However, I did not perceive any attempt to offer me any education about tea (the article that made this claim also said that Florence worked the counter- I've not seen her yet). Doesn't really matter to me, since the place is the perfect haven for me and I will do my own research with my eyes, nose and mouth.

Tasting Notes:

On the last two occasions that I have been at Song Fang Tea House, I had the Petrouchka tea. A strong black tea with heavy citrus scent and taste it is lovely to sip with a little milk (that's how I like my black tea). As I was leaving, I decided to purchase some of this tea and make it the tea of the month. I was side tracked by the sales girl who offered me the opportunity to smell the large blue canister filled with the Russian Flower tea. Since I have always had the Petrouchka, I thought I could try something different, yet in the same scented tea family. Not a great stretch I thought. I was a little wrong.

Russian Flower offers a fainter citrus note, with lots of flowery notes, but the fairly strong lingering taste is the one found in Russian Caravan. I had the "pleasure' of tasting some Russian Caravan tea from the U.S.S.R (in those days) and brought back as a souvenir by my brother. I think that I still have the tin somewhere. It was not, and still is not one of my favorite teas. Russian Caravan has a very smoky flavor, somewhat like a Lapsang Souchong, but with less intensity. I have historically referred to it as boiled potato peel water. I think that this might be a bit harsh. By itself, the Caravan is too intense for my taste. In this case, it has been well blended and lends an intriguing note to the tea. It tends to be a bit dark red in color and smells much like it tastes. It currently occupies one of the bone china tea canisters that I brought back from Jingdezhen last year.

I had it in my landlady's tea pot and cup and served it with a little milk and a slice of the prized christmas cake from my mom. I think that it was a quiet afternoon in the apartment.



I offer no photos of the place. As nice as it is (and cool too- the third floor has bamboo bird cages all over the ceiling- no birds though), and it is truly a great place to hang out- LBK and I spent a good couple hours there just chatting and cross stitching- the tea is the real reason to return.