We head to Chazhong for a treat for our taste buds and our eyes.
Japan loves all manner of tasty things, but stuff that tastes good and looks good earns a special place in people’s hearts. That presents a special challenge, though, for drink makers, since while a cafe can make its taiyaki fish-shaped cakes surf on waves of ice cream or bake cream puffs that look like Totoro, there’s not much you can do to creatively shape or position liquid refreshment.
But one cafe in Yokohama has been serving up smiles with its beverages, since the cups that its teas come in are topped with little teapots of their own.
The cafe, which opened in Yokohama’s Chinatown this past summer and quickly started generating buzz online, is called Chazhong. Since it’s only about a half-hour from downtown Tokyo to Yokohama, we hopped on the train and rode until Motomachi Chukaigai Station, then took the five-minute stroll over to Koi Koi Yokocho, the food hall that Chazhong is located inside of.
Chazhong has a menu made of up of milk teas using various kinds of Chinese teas, including oolong, white, and pu’er teas, as their base.
That already gives the place a pretty unique concept, but what really makes the place special is that when you purchase your drink ticket from the cafe’s machine, you not only select the size, amount of sugar, and whether you want your tea hot or cold, you also pick between a brown or red teapot…
…which sits on top of your cup’s lid.
That’s not any sort of CG or edited-in visual effect, either. There actually is a wisp of smoke or steam that rises out of the pot.
How does Chazhong pull off this cool trick? At first we thought the teapot might be open at the bottom, and steam was just rising up from the tea that’s inside the paper cup, but that’s not the case.
But the tiny teapot isn’t filled with boiling liquid of its own that steam is rising from either, since it’s too small to heat up on a stove.
However, it turns out there is water inside the pot, plus one other key component: dry ice. That combination produces a whisp of rising smoke that lasts for about 2 minutes, long enough to let you snap some very cook pictures, but not so long that you’ll have to worry about brushing it away while you’re actually drinking your tea,
As for the tea itself, our taste-testing reporter Yayoi Saginomiya’s hot, unsweetened Tieguanyin Tea was smooth with a clean finish, and the richness of the milk provided a special cozy touch to the flavor profile. In hindsight, though, she wishes she’d opted for a cold tea with a little sugar added. Not that her hot unsweetened brew was bad, but it had turned out to be an unseasonably warm day when she visited the cafe, and something cool and sweet would have been a weather-appropriate pick-me-up.
This does mean, though, that she now has a reason to go back again and get the red teapot, since the lid toppers are yours to keep and take home with you.
Cafe information
Chazhong (Yokohama Chinatown branch) / 茶种（横浜中華街店）
Address: Kanagawa-ken, Naka-0ku, Yamashitacho 133-10
神奈川県横浜市中区山下町133-10
Open 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
Website
Photos ©SoraNews24
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