PaoCha is a pop-up in south London specialising in Chinese tea and dim sum.
Welcome
It’s been a while…
Looking back at our last event, it was another experience worthwhile. Having had mostly what one could technically call strangers at the table didn’t feel strange to us. Quite the opposite, it was a round of lovely people we were delighted to serve with tea and food. Thank you for joining us guys! While saying so, the next event is already lurking on the horizon. So please lovely people, gather, reserve a seat, keep free July the 12th and come enjoy with us!
Till then!
July Event
A fresh perspective
Want to read a bit more in detail about an experience with us? Have a look at this lovely review composed by South London Life, a blog on all things fun in the ‘boring’ south.
Next Event!
To all you tea lovers and foodies out there!
We staged our 5th event last Sunday and once more were delighted to gather a bunch of lovely people around the table to serve them tea and dim sum. It was a great success and we highly recommend you secure your seats for the upcoming one on the 7th of June on GrubClub.
See you then and there!
Alex & Sam x
5th Event coming up!
Hey folks!
Our 5th event is up on GrubClub and ready to be booked, so make sure you’re free on Sunday the 10th May to come along to our home in Streatham, south London, for a marvellous Chinese tea and Dim Sum experience!
三茶六饭
lit. to offer three kinds of tea and six different dishes
to be extremely considerate towards guests (idiom)
We base our hospitality on this idiom. We provide three kinds of tea, and six dishes. Between each tea, two Chinese dim sum inspired dishes will be served.
Don’t miss out on our new arrival, the DanDan dumpling, filled with lovely goodness – made from spicy minced pork and sesame paste – and tasting like the infamous sichuanese dish.
Hope to see you soon!
Sam and Alex x
A sneak peak into the world of Chinese Tea
It’s not all about the builders, the assam or the earl grey. The world of tea has so much more to discover, as my wonderful guests this past sunday afternoon discovered. Here is a quick lowdown of what we gulped down:
开花茶 － Flowering Osmanthus Tea A bundle of green tea buds wrapped around an Osmanthus flower. Put into a glass teapot to watch as hot water is poured over the bundle, the Osmanthus opens out. Going to be honest, it is not the best tea for drinking (as the best buds wouldn’t be used for this) but it is visually beautiful.
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铁观音 – Tie Guan Yin – Iron Buddha Oolong Tea Often referred to as Monkey-picked oolong (an old wives tale, there were no monkeys hurt in the making of this), this tea has a fresh and fruity flavour (so much so that if you close your eyes, you could be in the tea fields themselves). It is picked in Anxi in Fujian province.
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福鼎白茶 – FuDing BaiCha – Silver Needle White Tea The Champagne of tea, this white tea (well the real one) is only grown in a small specific region of Fujian province, Southern China. It is smooth, sweet and soft with a floral but clean aroma.
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岩茶肉桂 – YanCha RouGui – Cassia Bark Oolong Tea This cliff tea from Wuyi Mountain in Fujian is a much darker and richer oolong than the Iron Buddha, with gorgeous aromatics. It has a smoked wood flavour with honeyed aftertaste.
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云南普洱 – YunNan Cooked Pu’er A rich dark tea (even darker than our black tea) from the western Chinese province of Yunnan, this tea still comes in cakes like those used to trade back in the days of the Silk Road. It has an earthy aroma but lingering sweetness to it. A little like a red wine, this tea is meant to get better with age.
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龙井绿茶 – LongJing LuCha – Dragon Well Green Tea One of the most famous teas in China, from Zhejiang Province, this puts all other Green tea to shame with it’s toasty and almost chest nutty refreshing flavour.
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康茶 － Kang Cha – Xi Mei Village Tea Possibly (I reckon anyway) the first of this tea to ever make it to the UK, this tea was bought in Xi Mei, a traditional tea village at the foot of Wuyi Mountain. It is known as a ‘health tea’ and normally only drank by the locals (not sold to the tourists). It has a bitter and somewhat off-putting smell and also taste, but after several infusions produces a strong sweetness on the roof of the mouth. If you fancy discovering the world of Chinese tea with us (with some yummy Chinese food too), keep an eye out for our next event!
TEA LOVE
People ask where my obsession with tea came from. To be honest, I think as soon as you taste the tea I have tasted, questions will no longer be asked. But, just in case I am biased, I will still attempt to answer this question.
If I think back to my university days, I was caught muttering to myself, ‘I love how tea is that little bit thicker than water‘. No, I have never lived it down. And no, what I said makes no sense. But at the time of saying it I was deep in my own thoughts, oblivious to the world, with a feeling of content. And that is why I love tea. Its the best thinking drink. It is almost like wine, but socially acceptable at all times, doesn’t bring out the alcohol anger, and comes sans (without) hangover. What else could you ask for? (apart from the fact it is also warming, has hundreds of health benefits and has a diverse range of aromas.. of if we are being posh, palettes). More tea knowledge from the tea obsessive to come.
Alex the anosmic
“Can you smell something burning?” Does that sound familiar Sam? Normally though, when the topic is first touched upon, people start by asking: “What do you smell/taste?” or something along these lines. Yes that’s right, I do not possess the sense of smell, I am anosmic:
For as long as I can remember I have never had a “nose” and I can’t say that I have ever missed it. You might wonder what it is I can taste while eating and how I manage to cook. As some might have already guessed, I am limited to the five different taste buds found on a human tongue; salt, sour, sweet, bitter and umami (I leave that last one to your own research, dear reader). Cooking, seasoning? I dare say I have roughly the same idea of how much of any herb, spice etc. to put in a dish as any other experienced cook. For anything only detectable via one’s beak, I have to rely on my observation of other people’s reaction.
So there you have it, technically yes, I am disabled but compared to lacking any of the other senses, I think it is the lesser evil.
Smell you later!
What is food to me?
More than once I felt the need to explain what feels so natural and seems so obvious to me. To put it simply, it is the substance we run on! It is able to make us healthy, occasionally it might make us ill or if it comes to the worst it could even kill us. Food does wield an undeniable influence on our existence which is why, wherever possible, I don’t want food to be able to ‘lie’ to me. A meal should be honest, you should be able to tell what it contains of and it should be fresh or at least in a condition in which it is meant to be eaten (pickles just crossed my mind).
PaoCha 