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Tea vs. Coffee

gs3

By gs3
in Greenville Coffee House

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gs3 Metropolitan Area

gs3

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Tried the new O-CHA Tea Bar earlier in the week. Outstanding! :D 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

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EDPro Whistle-Stop

EDPro

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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.

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RestedTraveler Metropolis

RestedTraveler

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Thank you, Moby! :silly:

...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. :rolleyes:

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

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  • 2 weeks later...
TREY Whistle-Stop

TREY

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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!

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monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

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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.

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RestedTraveler Metropolis

RestedTraveler

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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 :thumbsup:

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btoy Town

btoy

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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.

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wellington Unincorporated Area

wellington

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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/

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mcashlv Whistle-Stop

mcashlv

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Tried the new O-CHA Tea Bar earlier in the week. Outstanding! :D 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

CIMG3072.jpg

CIMG3073.jpg

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

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gs3 Metropolitan Area

gs3

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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/

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TREY Whistle-Stop

TREY

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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.

It was Ray's Jewelers for a long time and had a unbelievable "40's movie house" million? light bulb sign. I really miss the sign. I am sure the store sign is in some of the local history books, can anyone find a photo to share?

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goodbye Metropolitan Area

goodbye

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Posted

I want to see more shopping, dining, and galleries on the side streets and alleys. These might include Laurens Street, Brown Street, River Street, Falls Street, Spring Street, etc. The City should focus very hard on getting a few of the major proposed projects out of the ground to increace pedestrian flow in these areas. I know it will happen in good time, but I see them as being prime pieces of downtown just waiting to come alive. :)

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