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Paris: The Mariage Frères
The Mariage Frères has a tea shop, tea house and tea museum at 30 Rue du Bourg-Tibourg, Paris 4 (and a couple of other locations as well). The tea museum (captions in French) displays articles that have been used during the company’s long history as tea importers and vendors, such as boxes used for transporting tea, tea ware, some documents. It is not terribly interresting, but if you are there anyway to buy or drink tea you can as well take a look. -
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Well, they are running a business, they have an agenda of making money, and scented teas sell in Europe. Anyway they have a much better assortment of unscented teas than the average European tea shop. Of course you are right in that they are eager to create their own version of tea tradition, they are quite good at publishing books about themselves for example. However, the point here was not if they are “good” or “bad”, but if they have a tea museum or not.
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It is reasonable to have a business agenda there as the setup was basically totally funded by them. However, while it is okay to avoid issues that may not be advantageous to their business, it is another thing to propagate wrong concepts of things. Coming from a people whose history has been seriously manipulated and re-appropriated by Western powers, I am particularly strong view about institutions misrepresenting things. I see deliberate misrepresentations worse than the absence of representation. If I sound too aggressive, please bear with me.
Paris: Le Palais des Thés, Dammann Freres & Maison des Trois Thés
In France, I think Dammann Freres has a stronger collection of traditional quality tea as a larger business, and so is le Palais des Thés. And if you’d like a bit of adventure, a small shop in Paris which I have not been, but was introduced by a reader — Maison des Trois Thés seem to carry a fresh and boutique collection.Outside of France, the Swiss and the English are also quite good in trying to provide quality traditional ranges comparable or better than Mariage. Though few businesses have grown as profitable as Mariage Freres to be able to host a small museum. -
Maybe this discussion should be moved to the tea shops-forum. Le Palais des Thés has indeed an impressive assortment. Thanks for the tips about Dammann and Maison des Trois Thés, I will check them out next time I am in Paris. Do you have the web sites of the Swiss and English tea shops you mentioned? It is always nice to find new good vendors.
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Sorry I didn’t see this posting earlier.
Switzerland: Laengasstee & Reichmuth von Reding
In Switzerland try Laengasstee in Bern, or Reichmuth von Reding, which is a catalogue shop. The former is so particular with quality that they travel to Asia almost every year for sourcing. They have some of the finest selections in Europe. The latter was setup by Hanspeter Reichmuth, once the most respected wine master in the country who turn tea-loving a couple of decades ago.London: Post Card Teas
Post Card Teas in London is very particular with quality too; they have a Tea Masters’ series. This shop is highly regarded by my tea students and tea friends in that country.All these are tiny operations compared to Mariage Freres, but more quality oriented. -
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When in Zürich, Switzerland, do not fail to visit the Teahouse “Shui Tang” (www.shuitang.ch). The
Teahouse is run by Mrs Chou, Menglin from Taiwan.A fully trained Tea Master, she also holdsa Masters Degree in Social Sciences and Gemanistics. She has authored a book on tea in german.She started out with a wholesale import business, providing the finest chinese teas to bothLaenggasstee and Reichmuth von Reding. She then founded her teahouse “Shui Tang’ to forma home base for her educational activities furthering tea in Europe and to provide a meetingpoint for Tea People lost in our continent.If you speak german and are interested in meeting a truly original thinker, check out her blog at -
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