This week I had the chance to go to a Wegmans Food Market again. This particular Wegmans has a tea bar, which I had visited about a year ago. The tea bar is it's own little section of the store, where patrons can sit and enjoy a cup of tea at the bar or one of the few tables, smell different leaves, or pick up some loose leaf teas. It also has a few assorted sweets to go with tea and tea related accessories.
When I first went there last year the teabar was a relatively recent addition, and was still maturing. At the time teas were prepared as a gaiwan service. Each service comes with a tea related sweet as well. The selection of tea paraphenalia consisted of a few higher end tea related items such as a gaiwan set and a tea ocean.
When I visited the tea bar this time the service switched to a more traditional teapot service. I believe they are using some of the for life teapots. Their product selection also seems to have changed somewhat. They have a selection of tea related books, a few locally made tea products, and what surprised me the most was some products from other tea vendors. Notably they had products from Red Blossom, Adagio, and Rishi.
Their tea selection is quite varied, but has a bit of an emphasis on Japanese Green tea. They have about as many Japanese green teas as they do everything else, but considering this is a loose leaf tea selection in a grocery store it is quite impressive. The green teas are also stored in a refrigerator for freshness. They even serve matcha.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
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2 comments:
Hello,
I recently subscribed to your RSS feed and enjoy tea very much.
I think it is funny that you posted about this. My girlfriend and I just got back from Wegman's (in Pennsylvania) and we noticed the tea bar as well. However, at the one by us, there was no actual "bar" it was more like a small endcap(wall at the end of the aisle). I also noticed products from Rishi and a few other vendors. I did not see any products from Adagio however.
They did not have a gaiwan or tea pot service and no one was around to offer any assistance. We took it upon ourselves to smell some of the teas since no one was there. Most of the teas Wegman's were offering were flavored teas or herbals, except for a Lapsang, a plain Sencha and a couple others. I was slightly disappointed because I like natural teas but my girlfriend loved the selection. She got a chocolate chai tea which she said was, "her favorite ever". I almost bought some matcha, which I regret not getting.
Overall it was nice to see this section though because that means they may start to carry more. It would be nice to see them carry more varieties in the future.
Anyway, I look forward to more posts. Thanks for writing!
Cheers,
-Patrick
Hi Patrick,
Thanks for subscribing. I'm always glad to hear when more people start subscribing to my little blog here.
I didn't know that there were many different deployments of the Tea Bar out there. It would be interesting to see the difference in the many different little sections. At least for the one that I have been to it's a whole little section with tables and such. I imagine not all stores have that kind of space to dedicate.
Glad to have you aboard.
Eric
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