As I mentioned before, we realized tea (or coffee) breaks were very essential in Shanghai for us. As we like to explore a city by foot, Shanghai could be stressful to navigate around due to the crazy drivers and endless constructions in the city. Even taking taxi cab could stress you out too (i.e. bad traffic, dangerous driving, grumpy taxi drivers etc etc.)
Thank god for all these cute cozy tea houses and cafe spotted around the French concession neighbourhood (It’s our favorite part of town in Shanghai)! After a long day of walking, we dragged our tired feet into Song Fang Maison de Thé, a pretty tea house/shop in a converted lane house in the French concession area.
The first floor is retail where u can buy different kinds of Chinese tea leafs as well as French tea in their signature tin cans. 2nd floor is a spacious pretty tea room that serves tea and homemade dessert.
I love those vintage tin boxes! The tea menu was kind of overwhelming as there are many tea to choose from.
I got a tieguanyin (premium oolong) that has white flower fragrance and fruity flavor. I love it, very crisp, calming and refreshing. Three of us got different tea (forgot what Freda and Angie got) and they were served in different types of teapots. One of them was an Yixing clay teapot which I like a lot. If you order non Chinese tea, they’re served in Song Fang’s signature robin blue teapot set which is lovely too. Occasionally the server would come back and pour more water into the teapot, afterall good tea leafs can be brewed multiple times.
We got the homemade Earl Grey ice-cream. It’s rich in tea aroma and not too sweet, very good !
I love their gorgeous signature porcelain teapot set with the logo so I bought the teacup + plate set home.
Song Fang Maison de thé
227 Yongjia Road near Shaanxi Nan Road
021-6433-8283
Tags: fashionable, Ice cream, Tea
I love all your tea breaks!
Seriously if you didn’t say it was Shanghai I would have thought you were in 下北沢 or 吉祥寺 or other local town in Tokyo. One of my HK friends was lamenting that this kind of trendy cafes just can’t survive in HK because of the expensive rent. At first I wonder why you girls picked Shanghai for a holiday….after seeing your posts I understand why! Shanghai is so “in”!!
seat, when we were in HK and our foot was hurting from the walking, we seriously cannot find a cafe to rest. Not even a Starbuck.
Yeah Shanghai seems like an exciting place to be at now. City like HK, Tokyo are too developed already…everything is slick, packaged so nicely…etc. while Shanghai has this interesting mix of old city versus new up and coming trendy/hip/artsy/subculture side. It’s fun to see what the city inspired people and what they bring into it. Such the owner of this teahouse is a French woman. I’m so inspired too…I keep thinking about what kind of store/cafe/restaurant I can open in Shanghai. ^^;;