Wing Hop Fung is my favorite place in Monterey Park.
Imagine a warehouse dedicated to selling tea and beverages.
It’s kind of like heaven.
I had a lovely conversation about Aristotle with a young Chinese intellectual who was accompanying her grandmother on her weekly visit to Wing Hop Fung. They both helped me pick my phenomenal Pu-Errh tea.
I chose the $39.99/lb version based on a heroically-written description.
My other options were a boring $9.99/lb option and the magical “picked by blind monkeys in the dead of night during a lunar eclipse, once every 25 years and aged for 30 months in a secret room in the Forbidden City” version that cost-I-AM-NOT-KIDDING-YOU $1,500/lb.
Chinese people do not joke about their tea.
Here’s a sample of what their Matcha display looks like:
I gotta go there, then eat at the place next door! Want to join me???
I got to go there too and now I am intrigued by the tea leaf picking bling monkeys. Do you get a feeling sometimes that Chinese just about say anything to pull our leg or that they have a very bizarre culture? On the other hand, that they employ blind monkeys who would otherwise sit idly may be a good thing. : )
I was totally joking, of course. I just invented a fictional situation where tea could possibly be WORTH $1,500 a pound.
Whatever happened to our loyalty to Mariage Frères? I forgot, they have no monkeys only baboons……
you are hilarious mona, i love how you are concerned about idle blind monkeys!!! miss you tons.
great post v.