Listen to the Rain

Delicious tea. 🍵

A few weeks ago, a Tock email landed in my mailbox and I actually read it rather than immediately deleting it. It advertised a tea tasting even at Easthill Tea Co over on Milwaukee. I'd been there once before, on the way to see an exhibit at the Video Games Art Gallery, and I was impressed that they actually had matcha even if I was offended at the price they were charging for it. But the tea tickets were $30 for two hours of tasting, so I put out an invite and meowtima and worldbshiny were both free, so we planned to meet for brunch beforehand, put it on our calendars, and waited.


Well, one of us put it on their calendar. I showed up to brunch on Saturday and no one was there, and when I texted the others to see what was up, both of them had forgotten. meowtima hopped in a Lyft to get there as soon as possible, but worldbshiny said she had a cold and begged off brunch so she'd have more time to rest before tea. When meowtima arrived we didn't have enough time to get into Dove's, our original idea for brunch, so instead we walked over to Umami Burger and I tried another one of Chicago's burger mainstays--it was pretty good, though swapping out the cheese for an egg made it extremely messy to eat and I ended up having to soak up a lot of spilled sauce with my bun.

Eating at the nearly-empty Umami Burger meant that we had plenty of time after we were finished, so meowtima suggested we go to the nearby Myopic Books and I happily agreed. After a bit of browsing through the comics I went to the Religion section, where I found Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition and a book I've been wanted to read for a while, Life is With People: The Culture of the Shtetl, so I bought both of them. I did not buy the Japanese translation of Catcher in the Rye sitting by the register because 1) I've already read it in English and 2) I didn't like it that much.

Then, we went for tea.


I'd never heard of tea pets before, but the woman leading our tasting said they were a Chinese tradition--unglazed figures that, through having tea poured over them for months and years, take on a bit of the texture and feel of the tea. She was born in China, in Sichuan, and moved to America when she was five, and she used to be a teacher before she quit and now works part-time at Easthill and part time as an artist. From what she said, that's the path most of Easthill's staff followed--one person was an actor, one was a playwright, and one was a writer.

We had two hours for tea, so we picked out a bunch from the menu and then narrowed them down to chrysanthemum tea (chosen by me), anji baicha (chosen by worldbshiny), and lapsang souchong (chosen by meowtima). That would have been it, but when the tea leader learned that meowtima was also born in China and that I had lived in Japan, she dug into her personal stash for us and we eventually added a gyokuro (玉露, "Jeweled dew") that was definitely my favorite. It was thick, and bitter, almost as strong as matcha, with a taste that coated my entire mouth and lingered. The tea leader said she could tell it wasn't wasted by the expression I made when I took the first sip, and it made me wonder if I was preparing gyokuro at home wrong. I'll have to buy more and try again. And I revise my initial hasty judgement of Easthill based on the price of matcha. It was great and I'd gladly go back.

I did not buy any tea afterwards, but meowtima bought some of the lapsang souchong we had tried. It did make me think of overstuffed leather chairs in a dim library, or of cigars and brandy after 19th century banquets, but my bag was full of books.

After a stop in at Insomnia Cookies and Jeni's Ice Cream so worldbshiny could get some food in her stomach, we walked over to Quimby's Comics for Free Comic Book Day. I'm still not much of a comics reader so I didn't expect to find anything I cared about, but there was a free comic tied to one that lisekatevans had loaned to me, so I grabbed that as a present for her. While worldbshiny and I looked around, meowtima collected his bounty and when he had paid for it, he suggested we go check out the nearby Arc'teryx physical location a bit further north. It was all techwear and a bit too colorful for me--I don't wear enough colors or spend enough time climbing freehand to really need anything they make--but I was glad to see people inside and I hope they do brisk business.

meowtima mentioned a Demobaza store on the way out, so I showed him the pictures of the brutalist Demobaza store in Dubai.

We went up to Moth so I could show them the store, since I know meowtima loves that Scandinavian/Japanese design aesthetic, and so I could introduce them to my Japanese tutor. When we left it was already 5:30 so we set off to find somewhere to eat. We had originally planned to go to dinner at Wasabi, but since it had a thirty-minute wait, we kept walking up Milwaukee into Logan Square until we walked past a restaurant called Serai that fang.the.tall had told meowtima about, and as soon as he said it was Singaporean food, I jumped on that. And it was delicious:


I also got a Singapore Sling, not pictured here, which tasted like the last time I had one, on the balcony of the Raffles Hotel when I was in Singapore, though without the punishing heat this time. The food was amazing, and there's a part of me that's sad that I finally found a place in Chicago that has laksa years after I stopped eating pork or shrimp and thus won't eat it anymore. But meowtima ordered it and said it was delicious, and worldbshiny let me try some of her chicken dish and it was also delicious. Everything was delicious. That's the main memory I have of Singapore--it has the best food in the world.

After dinner, worldbshiny invited us both to a showing of Avengers: Endgame, but we both begged off. In my case, it's because I've seen precisely two Marvel movies--Captain America: the First Avenger and Black Panther--and would be completely confused by everything and that's too much for a three-hour commitment, so I went home, arriving at 8:30 p.m. after having left the house at 10:30 a.m.

Now that is a Saturday.

On Sunday I got up again and went downtown to meet ed.mcnamara13 and his girlfriend takei.tsubasa for lunch. After a brief bit of confusion over the place--I had suggested Vermillion, with the Purple Pig as a backup if it was full, and they went straight to the Purple Pig and got a table--we sat down, picked out drinks, and ordered, and I finally got to experience one of Chicago's tourist hit restaurants that I had been missing:


For two people who can't eat cheese and one person who doesn't eat pork, we made an excellent meal out of the Purple Pig's offerings. Those chicken thighs were delicious as was the grilled broccoli, and the deviled egg was very good even if I was expecting more than a single egg on a plate designed to be shared. We stuffed ourselves on meat and veggies while ed.mcnamara13 and I reminisced about Japan, talked video games, and he told me about his engineering studies and I told him about programming. takei.tsubasa mostly listened, but occasionally she'd chime in. We only left because it was getting pretty chilly--we were sitting outside, and the shade and the wind combined with Chicago spring meant it was about 10°C cooler in the shade than in the sun--and went to Alliance Patisserie for dessert and, after eating our cakes, we parted.

I wanted to stay longer and show them around, maybe go to the Art Institute, but I had too many chores to do to prepare for the week and they were both very tired after a week of showing takei.tsubasa's father around and looking for an apartment for her before her job in Chicago starts, so they went back to the hostel and I went shopping, then did a bunch of chores, and finally played a little Breath of the Wild before bed.

If this is going to keep happening I'm going to need to spread my chores out through the week so I have time to get them all done. I've already moved washing clothes and vacuuming to Mondays. But on the other hand, that's an acceptable price--this was a great weekend and now I look forward to full weekends with excitement rather than anxiety. Here's to more fun times with friends!