[gsupstate]

Tried the new O-CHA Tea Bar earlier in the week. Outstanding! If you haven't tried it yet, check it out! I think it speaks to the uniqueness of downtown Greenville's renaissance, that more than just coffee shops are taking root. O-CHA Tea Bar is open, Sip Tea is under construction in Poinsett Corners and since my company works with Teavana, I know first hand they are looking at locations in Greenville. Is tea the new coffee?

http://www.teavana.com

[EDPro]

I've heard bubble tea is the 'next coffee'. I'm not sure what bubble tea is, but apparently it is the new trendy thing.
Think I read that in Fast Company magazine.

Anyone ever tried this? Pretty sure I've heard Sip Tea will offer it.

[Brandon]

I tried out O Cha last weekend...great atmosphere with a very eclectic mix of customers inside. It won't replace coffee in my book. No clue what bubble tea is, but am curious...if anyone knows, enlighten us!

[gsupstate]

Brandon, on Oct 26 2005, 02:01 PM, said:

I tried out O Cha last weekend...great atmosphere with a very eclectic mix of customers inside. It won't replace coffee in my book. No clue what bubble tea is, but am curious...if anyone knows, enlighten us!

Go to this link:

http://www.bubbletea.com

[RestedTraveler]

Thank you, Moby!

gsupstate, on Oct 26 2005, 03:15 PM, said:

...since my company works with Teavana, I know first hand they are looking at locations in Greenville. Is tea the new coffee?

http://www.teavana.com

My wife will be happy to hear that; however, that'll take away our reason for going over to the Mall of Georgia.

I've been wanting to check O-Cha out; however, it's not very stroller-friendly, from what I can tell.

This post has been edited by RestedTraveler: 26 October 2005 - 05:27 PM

[cafealotaguy]

I love tea and coffee equally and bubble tea especially. At Ocha you can get on their frequent buyer program (I am !) If you get bubble tea, make sure to get the pearls. Here is a link to a gallery with six pictures from Ocha (some other ones too)

[Greenville]

I love tea! I don't drink coffee, but tea is amazing.

[gsupstate]

RestedTraveler, on Oct 26 2005, 05:26 PM, said:

Thank you, Moby!

Somebody has done Teany.

[btoy]

I am a big Coffee fan. But I love tea as well. A few months ago I got into drinking Roibos (Red Bush) Tea. Love the stuff.

[TREY]

The tea shop (The Sip) located in the Poinsett corners, has a sign posted that they will be open on November 11. Also it appears that the Poinsett corner lower level is slowly filling in with a mix of office and retail businesses including the Poinsett Bridal shop. Check out and support these local new businesses!

[monsoon]

I think more people in the USA don't drink coffee because the coffee available here is really bad.

The key to good coffee are fresh beans, hot enough brewing temperatures, and proper roasting. Sounds simple but there is where the problem lies.

All grocery store coffee is really bad. Its made from cheap robusta beans blended with a small more expensive arabica beans. And if it is ground, then forget it. Once coffee beans are ground, they have a good life of about 2 hours. Even the premium stuff like millstone is made from inferior beans and may be weeks and months old. Roasted coffee beans should be used between 1-14 days of being roasted.

Home drip brewers are notorious about not getting the water hot enough. So if you do manage to get some good beans, they are ruined in these makers. You really have to search around to find a unit that will get the water to 190-195F. Don't assume an expensive brewer makes good coffee because the vast majority of them don't. Most people have no idea this is why their home coffee does not taste good.

The next step up are chain places such as StarBucks, Carribou, Dunkin doughnuts. The beans are better quality, but may be very old, and they have proper brewing equipment though you might get old coffee. Starbucks tends to way over roast their beans to hide these deficiencies, which is why they have the nickname, CharBucks. Quality control in these places is iffy as they usually employ college kids that really have no idea what they are doing. They make most of their money by dumping cream sugar flavorings into their coffee to hide the inferior coffee that they do sell.

Finally if you are very lucky, you might find a locally owned coffee house that roasts it's own premium beans and brews in small amounts so that the coffee is always fresh. The best would be a place that makes cafe americano which is an expresso shot poured into hot water. That makes a really good cup of coffee. Places such as this are really hard to find in the USA. If you go into a coffee house, and the best thing they have is flavored coffee (such as hazelnut), then it's probably a lost cause. They are dumping chemical flavoring into their coffee to hid the fact that it is bad coffee.

As a side note, there is a growing movement for people to roast their own coffee beans at home. This is a return to what most American did for coffee prior to the 1930s. Green coffee beans last for years until roasted so it is a good way to get very very good coffee at home.

[RestedTraveler]

monsoon, on Nov 5 2005, 09:35 AM, said:

Finally if you are very lucky, you might find a locally owned coffee house that roasts it's own premium beans and brews in small amounts so that the coffee is always fresh. The best would be a place that makes cafe americano which is an expresso shot poured into hot water. That makes a really good cup of coffee. Places such as this are really hard to find in the USA.

monsoon, you have got to come over here to Travelers Rest and check out Leopard Forest

[btoy]

I drink their coffee all the time, love it, actually drinking their Snow Leopard as I type this (third cup). I usually by them through Hot Java, who by the way is about two open their second location. I'll have to go buy their store one day, I see on their website that you can buy coffee tree seedlings, that would be fun.

And since I mentioned it, Hot Java's second location is opening at the Village at Pelham in Greer any day now.

[wellington]

EDPro, on Oct 26 2005, 02:46 PM, said:

I've heard bubble tea is the 'next coffee'. I'm not sure what bubble tea is, but apparently it is the new trendy thing.

Bubble tea is GREAT. It is huge in cities with a large Asian population especially the West Coast and Canada. People either love it or hate it. The strange part for some people is sucking up tapioca bubbles (pearls) through a straw. Bubble tea is not really tea although some drinks can be made with tea generally black tea. Most bubble drinks contain either real fruit or a powder with some form of dairy product (milk, powder) and a sweetner (corn syrup, sugar).

There are hundreds of flavors... here are my favorites... lychee, honeydew, mango, taro, thai tea... there are also traditional flavors... strawberry, cherry, grape, pineapple...

From a business standpoint it is a great product. The bubble tea powder has a long shelf-life and like coffee it is cheap to make and thus there is a large profit margin (average price for a 16 oz. cup of bubble tea $3.00 to $3.50). I'd expect bubble tea shops to pop up first in college towns around the Southeast. It is great for the South especially in the summer since it is a cold, refreshing drink. It could be a really huge success or it could be a miserable failure in this part of the country.

If you haven't tried -- I highly recommend it.

http://www.bubbletea.com/

This post has been edited by wellington: 08 November 2005 - 03:31 PM

[mcashlv]

gsupstate, on Oct 26 2005, 02:15 PM, said:

Tried the new O-CHA Tea Bar earlier in the week. Outstanding! If you haven't tried it yet, check it out! I think it speaks to the uniqueness of downtown Greenville's renaissance, that more than just coffee shops are taking root. O-CHA Tea Bar is open, Sip Tea is under construction in Poinsett Corners and since my company works with Teavana, I know first hand they are looking at locations in Greenville. Is tea the new coffee?

http://www.teavana.com

That's a great looking old art deco building. What building is that? A splendid conversion.

[RestedTraveler]

Did I see correctly that Sip is open now at Poinsett Corners off of Richardson and Broad?

[gsupstate]

mcashlv, on Nov 12 2005, 11:42 PM, said:

That's a great looking old art deco building. What building is that? A splendid conversion.

Not sure what this building was originally, not being from Greenville. Any longtime Greenvillians know the history? It was empty when I moved here, and then Venti opened in the bottom, and most recently O-Cha. It's one of my fav buildings and one of the few deco that downtown GV has.

About tea....a couple of other links that some may find interesting:

http://www.teamap.com/

http://www.ochateabar.com/home/

[gsupstate]

I've found the Bubble Tea at SIP to be the best downtown. Love this place!

[RestedTraveler]

Thanks, gsupstate! I'll check it out. It seems awfully lonely over there with nothing else around it, though. I'd like to see more places open in the other store fronts.

[GvilleSC]

I sure hope that more stuff opens down there... It's a great location-- river front and all. I'm sure that Riverplace shall help.