Barcelona Tea House

Every year, we travel a bit. Probably less then we would like to, but studio keeps us busy. Despite the fact that we call those trips Holiday it somehow usually includes ceramic or/and tea world. Last year it was Festival of Fire in France, this year we visited our friend Antonio, who runs the tearoom named  Čaj Chai Tearoom. 

But first, let make stop at empty beaches. Living in landlocked Czech Rep, enjoying sea is always more then welcome...

Our plans for (our first) Barcelona visit were quite simple: art museums, old city downtown and the tearoom. Antonio asked us to bring selection of new teaware for his customers. We have also arranged small ceramic workshop. A opportunity for those, who would like to get closer look to how we work. This Sunday workshop had two parts. First there was demonstration of "how I finish a teapot".  I showed live, how spout and handle are made - how basic body is changed to the final teapot. There was small, but very enthusiastic group of people, so it was quite easy to talk about types of clays, glazes, firings for more then two hours.

The second part of the event was focused on preparing water on charcoal. Yes, I like this topic. Mirka started to work on stoves more regularly. I create kettles. I still keep testing all of them and it helps me to get more experiences on this field. So the topic of this "charcoal workshop" was not only to show some of our stoves-kettles, but especially to share those experiences. It was fun to watch how people are fascinating by fire. We light up two stoves and tried to boil water in ceramic as well as in glass teapot. I was glad that the tearoom was just lightly scented by charcoal aroma and not smoked - the oak charcoal I brought was good quality. I prepared several infusions of young sheng. After second infusion, a participant in front of me has declared "I never liked pu-ehr. But this one is very tasty! I am going to give it another chance".

If you will be in Barcelona one day, I would recomment to stop by. Despite of the name of the tearoom Čaj Chai (chai- the Indien mixture of red tea and spices) you will find there wide selection of exellent teas. I can confirm that after seeing Juan Miró, Pablo Pissaso or Antonio Gaudi a cup of Ali Shan oolong is going to round off your day in very pleasant way.


Thank you for reading!