gifts

Holiday Food/Gift Guide, Tea Time

Second in the Holiday Food/Gift Guide (first post here). Tea makes a great gift. Tea isn’t one of those gifts that takes up space or gets thrown in the back of the closet, only to be seen again when moving or searching for a lost shoe. When you give the gift of fine tea, your recipient can think of you each time they brew a cup, it’s a nice reminder.

There are a number of good tea shops around town and when you’re giving a gift, it’s nice to pick quality and something that comes in a stylish container.

Tea Garden & Herbal Emporium
9001 Beverly Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90048
310-205-0104

The Tea Garden has a wide selection of traditional teas, as well as teas that you don’t find at many other tea shops such as Yellow Tea and Pu-erh Tea. Each tea is packaged in a silver tea can with a hand-scribed label to identify what is inside.

Chado Tea Room
8422 1/2 west 3rd street
Los Angeles 90048
(800)442-4019

Chado teas are very full leaf and come in elegant tea cans. If you are buying single teas, I suggest trying out the Silver Needle Jasmine, which has an incredibly smooth flavor and delicious aroma. For a gift, Chado has a number of gift boxes which is a great way to sample a variety of high quality teas.

Elixir Tonics & Teas
8612 Melrose Ave
West Hollywood, CA 90069
310-657-9310

Elixir is a bit over the top on ceremony and may be more style than substance, but it is a cool place to check out. The teas are high quality and you can also pick up some herbs to cure what ails you (or your gift recipient). In addition to their teas, Elixir also has a lot of tea-themed gifts including tea pots and brewing aids. Their garden out back is also a nice place to take a break from shopping and enjoy a hot cup of tea.

By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.

© 2006 la.foodblogging.