Whenever we’re out and about travelling, we always keep our eyes peeled for tea shops to pop into.

If we’re feeling particularly organized then we might actually do a bit of research pre-departure, so that we have a hit-list of addresses that we can work into our itinerary for our time away.

It’s interesting to see what’s on sale elsewhere – it gives you a clue as to what the local tea culture might be like, and who knows, you might come across some leaves that are normally unavailable on your home turf. You may just get lucky and cop for a bargain. Yes, internet shopping is a wonderful thing, and it’s fantastic that tea from the other side of the planet can arrive at your door a few days after you’ve done the pointy-clicky thing, but there’s still something special about browsing and buying in a good old fashioned bricks and mortar tea shop.

Mrs. Teaist, her mother, and Teaist Jr. recently took the train over to Northern Germany, to visit the famous Lübeck Christmas Market. In total she found and subsequently raided 2 shops and a market stall, and brought back 10 teas for me, although she made it clear that this number could have been much higher had not baggage space and the available brass left in the tea buying kitty been under as great a strain.

This, then, is an overview of the teas I spent the better part of an hour and a half caddying up the other morning, as well as a kind of sneak peek at the agenda for this blog for the next few weeks…

Lübecker Tee Kontor

Mrs. Teaist found this tea shop when she walked past it while at the Christmas market. She scored for…

• Floral Guranse – a Nepalese black tea.
• Tian Mu Qing Ding
• Singbulli Oolong – a unique tea from the Singbulli estate in Darjeeling
• A New Zealand Oolong
• Panyang Golden Needle
• A 357 gram beeng of shou
• A 100 gram beeng of sheng

Tee Gschwendner

Mrs. Teaist was searching for an art supply shop on Google maps, when she noticed this shop was very close by – less than 1 city block away. She bought me 100 grams of Indian White Havukal, which is a white tea from Southern India that resembles Bai Mu Dan, and received a free 6 gram sample of Yunnan Golden Downy Pekoe (a black tea that bears a passing resemblance to Golden Snail) into the bargain.

Boomers Gourmet

On their way around the Christmas market my womenfolk passed by this stall, and noticed that they sold tea! After a quick bit of messaging, I opted for a packet of Gu Zhang Mao Jian green tea from Ronnefeldt.

So, as you can see I’m going to be kept busy for a wee while getting to know this haul better, which is a good job, really, because it’s going to take quite some time for new funding to trickle down into my tea purchasing account, by all accounts.

Still, I’ll have all these new teas to see me through, so my cup runneth over, and yet is half full at the same time, and that ain’t bad…