Spring is a great time to visit the Hill Country of Texas! Not only the weather is very mild with crispy air, but the state flower – Bluebonnet – is in full blossom. The flowers turn the wide open grassy lands into huge lushly blue carpets, sporadically decorated with other wild flowers of orange, yellow and pink.
We planned a small tea gathering party with some of our tea friends/customers in a lovely teahouse, the Formosa Art Teahouse in Pflugerville (a bit north of Austin), at the evening of March 29th.
It was my first visit to Riva’s teahouse. Honestly, it was quite surprising to find such an unique and stylish, connoisseurs-oriented yet super friendly teahouse in a small Texas town that is just slightly better than middle-of-no-where! I can imagine such a teahouse in Seattle, LA, Boston, etc., but Pflugerville (I did not even know how to pronounce the name of the town)!
Once entering the teahouse and meeting the owner, Riva, who was also from Taiwan, you would immediately know the purpose of the little place: it’s the expression of her love of teas, it’s the gallery of her artistic creations, it’s her playground – or more precisely, the playground she built for her customers, friends and herself. A super warm and easy-going lady, and I was surprised to know that she also coached a little boy soccer team without knowing how to play soccer! Way to go!
We started the evening with a jar of my Private Reserve roasted aged chin-shin oolong. The tea was acquired in 03, only two jars, and was told it is 10-years old already. I used it as a material to study roasting and storing aged oolongs. I chose a tall zhu gan zhi teapot (you can see it in the first picture) to serve this aged oolong.
The second tea we tried was the mid-90’s aged Feng Huang Dancong. This time, because of the long leaves of the dancong, I used a wide-opening Gu Tung Ni (antique copper clay) teapot (the one in the first picture with clay-piling decoration). After the dancong, Riva served us some wonderful snacks; very Taiwanese style, and I was surprised to find fried dumplings, Cha Shu Bao (HK style) and bamboo wrapped Zhong Zhi!
The third tea we had was the 08 Spring Shan-Lin-Shi “Tsao Ling” Oolong, using a chin-shui ni teapot of Zhou Quei-Zheng. And we concluded the night with the 07 Winter Mei-Shan “Shui Xian”, again in the zhu gan zhi teapot.
The gathering was planned originally from 7pm~9pm. But when Riva and I finally said goodbye, it was 12:30AM already! Talking about time management
You would easily lose track of time in such a fun, comfortable and intimate place!
Hope everyone had a good night (and was able to sleep after). I look forward to seeing y’all again very soon!
Formosa Art Teahouse
200 E. Pecan St. Ste. 5
Pflugerville, TX 78660
Tel: (512) 989-8678
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