Cha-T

Cha-T

Boxhill Centro Shop 53, Boxhill

(Ph) 9898 8900

After dinner we were so stuffed but just wanted to chill somewhere - what better place than a tea shop! By the window there's a round wooden shelf with lots of intricate ceramic and clay teapots and tea cups.

And inside the shop they sell lots of tea accessories - teapot sets, teas, teacakes.

They also normally sell the "pee pee boy" which they actually sold out of on this day =( But I've got some at my parents home and they are very cool =) They're little figurines made of clay, hollow inside with the only opening being it's pee pee! Chinese people use it to test the temperature of their tea water. Chinese people usually boil water in the morning and put the boiled water in a thermos throughout the day to use for tea etc. This pee pee boy is to test whether the water is still hot enough for tea =) You soak the pee pee boy in cold water for about 5 minutes, and then you pour the hot water over its head. If the water is hot enough for tea, a nice stream of pee pee will come out! The hotter the water, the further the stream goes =) These little clay figurines are actually very popular souvenirs from China these days - not that tourists would use it for this purpose =P

The shop is not that big but it was quite busy on this night.

On the wall there are really pretty paintings =)

There are a few very interesting looking tables and stools - caved from humongous roots of trees, though they're not the most comfortable to sit on =P

Look at the little Buddha carved into the table!

There are normal tables/chairs to sit at too but we choose to sit at one of the tree root tables.

Look at the crazy looking stool - seriously so hard and uncomfortable though =P The surface of all the root tree tables is slanted so all the liquid drains down this tube to a bucket underneath the table.

We ordered a pot of High Mountain Green Tea for $16. There is a whole ceremony that goes with tea drinking. There is a kettle filled with hot water which is constantly boiled sitting on the electric base. They pour the boiling water over the teapot first to warm it up, then they rinse all the tiny teacups with boiling water too - all handled with the chopstick-like forceps.

Then finally pour water in the teapot which already came with the tea leaves.

The teapot is very small - one full pot can only fill our 4 tiny teacups once. The tiny teacups seemed a bit silly at first, 'cause it's really just one sip. But we realised that Chinese people like to drink their tea very hot so if the teacups were bigger half the cup would get cold =P We were constantly refilling our teapot (so they had to constantly change our kettles), sometimes leaving the water in there longer so the tea is stronger. Other times when the tea was cold or dilute, we would pour it onto the table which would drain to the bucket underneath. Quite a fun experience =)

We didn't have anything to eat here, but they do sell some simple snacks like nuts and fried fruits etc so you could easily spend a good few hours here =)

Food~
7/10 - not really food here but anyway, they have teas ranging up to $68 a pot! maybe next time I'll try a more exotic tea =)

Atmosphere~
3/5 - very relaxing environment here, if only the chairs/stools were more comfortable but that's our fault for sitting on the tree stumps =P

Service~
3/5 - the owner came and explained to us some tea traditions and the girls kept coming back to change our kettle with more boiling water =)

C.
xo