Travel Taipei

The Wistaria teahouse is a real treasure in the Taipei Tea Scene. The first step into the small courtyard with the Koi pond and the green plante takes you already out of big City Stress and into the calm atmosphere of tea. There was no free space in the tatami room, so we stayed in the room with tables and chairs. It's a beautiful room with a strong positive atmosphere. One tea in the menu was more appealing than the next - which made the choice real hard. An interesting Pu er selection, cliff teas and of course different kinds of Oolongs were waiting to be discovered. We decided to go first with the aged Shui Xian. If you don't know about tea preparation, the stuff is going to introduce you. We had about 11 brews of that tea and it was still tasty. With every brew the charcoal taste vanished and fruity notes appeared. Good choice for cold days or to find relief from running thoughts. Second we chose a Pu er: Tze Ping (2003). What to say about... ?! The tea was calming, surprisingly fresh in taste, wonderful honeyredbrown colour. The tea made my whole body smile. I had never found so much Qi in any Pu er as in this one. Thank you, Wistaria, for this perfect afternoon. We will come back!

This is a cute little place that had been repurposed from a Japanese home to a tea house. The staff was friendly and accommodating. One sat down with us to go over how to brew tea for the best taste. It was a nice place to just sit and take in all the history that had taken place and enjoy some delicious tea. Enjoy the garden outside too with koi fish!

Elegant Japanese tea house that’s reserved way in advance. Good quality Taiwan teas as Japan was a conqueror in Taiwan for decades. Menu however is in Traditional Chinese. Each member however must drink tea to have a seat at the table or tatami. Love the personal demonstration and care in the tea traditions that is very labor intensive and small portions. About 360 TWD for 1 person serving.

Based on the research we did we expected a truly memorable experience. The building is lovely and the staff were friendly and helpful in educating us about how to brew the tea. Unfortunately the tea didn’t impress. We had a high mountain oolong and a black tea and in neither case was there much to note. I thought the same oolong tea we had at restaurant north of Taipei was much more impressive. It may be that we are simply novices and don’t appreciate the subtleties but either way I left underwhelmed.

I am an avid tea lover and was extremely excited to have the opportunity to visit Wisteria Tea House on my recent trip to Taiwan. Based on what I had heard from word of mouth, I reserved a private room and gathered a group of 8 friends to join me for tea at Wisteria. Upon arrival we were greeted nicely by the young man at the front desk. After talking with him a bit, we decided to have dinner 1st, followed by tea and snacks. Our reservation was for 7pm, however our order was not taken until 7:45.This was not a problem since we were having a great time amongst ourselves. The dinner arrived and was excellent. After the table was cleared I ordered 3 teas, the server told me i should order 4 teas, and I did. The 1st tea arrived and the server asked which one of us was going to brew it. I quickly jump at the chance, however one of my friends requested that she brew the 1st tea for us. Although she was very pleasant, the oriental beauty tea was extremely bitter due to the exorbitant amount of tea she used in the pot. She instructed us to always fill the tea pot 2/3 with tea. ??? It was now 9:30 and she told us to continue brewing the other teas ourselves, which we preferred anyway. A minute later the bill was dropped at the table and we were told by a different server that they are getting ready to close at 10:00. We still had aged tieguanyin, 2004 ban zhang sheng puer and 1960’s ripe puer. Anyone who knows teas, knows that a half hour is not enough to get thru these types of teas which will each easily brew many, many brews. i rushed thru the teas, doing 4 brews if each, which was an incredible waste of precious tea! To add to this, we were reprimanded by the same server who dropped the bill when we requested more water to brew with. She scolded us for rinsing the teas. She said that in Taiwan they valued the water and do not waste it as we were doing. I do not rinse all my teas, however, i will always rinse a 1960’s shou puer regardless of how precious the water is. And with the short amount of time allotted us, we needed to get to the heart of the other teas quicker. Despite, the severs’ unprofessional customer service and lack of training we still enjoyed the food, snacks and teas, all of which were very good. I just wish that the servers were better trained to match such a wonderful tea house treasure. We also felt that since they delayed taking the food order, then we should not have been rushed out, nor should they have up-sold an extra tea knowing that our time was so limited.