She: Hina Tea

I love tea. Mark loves a good, strong green tea, but my tastes vary a bit more. I do prefer green tea since its light in caffine and has a more delicate flavor, but I drink all sorts. Good tea is easier and easier to come by, which is good, considering I don't drink coffee. Most malls have a teavana store, and we've found a great place in San Fran's china town thats amazing. However, we recently found a great place downtown that is fabulous: hina tea.

Hina tea is a balm for the body AND the mind--as an artist I'm a tad picky about my surroundings in some ways, but the architecture there is calming and creative. There are tons and tons of teas to choose from: blacks, whites, greens, fruit infused, you name it, they've got it. And if you aren't sure what you'd like, they'll let you try a few out. Smelling the teas gives you a decent idea of what the flavor will be, but it gets a little tricky with fruit teas, which was what I was hunting.

Mark set down the path of purism, selecting a ton of straight green teas. He likes a stronger, grassier taste to his teas than I do. I like teas with jasmine and other flavors--but no sugar. No siree. I tried a white apricot tea, a passionfruit tea, and when these didn't ring my bell I asked for the barista's opinion, and am sooo glad I did. She introduced me to their Shanghai Lychee. I love and remember lychee from overseas, and the tea was amazing. The grean tea wasn't overpowered by the fruit. Instead, I got a strong kick of green with the lychee on the back of my tongue as an aftertaste. I got it iced (they have iced, hot, chai and all other sorts of stuff). Mark and I sat down with our teas and they gave us a tray of cute cookies to go along with our tea. They have a great selection of ceramics, and the place is spacious, quiet and soothing. The staff are helpful without being pushy. I highly suggest giving it a try. The shop is located off K street (2319 K Street) near Rick's Dessert Diner and Tres Hermanas. The website is: http://www.hinastea.com