I Heart Tea

Ah Tea!  As a native Texan, tea usually means sweet tea or tea served with tons of sugar. And growing up I never considered drinking warm tea, as in Texas is not very popular. But when I traveled to Grenoble, France I stumbled upon a wonderful tea shop and I was instantly hooked to warm tea.

For starters Grenoble is in the mid to south region of France and is known as the “Capital of the Alps”. And when I first arrived I was stumbling a long the streets of Grenoble and I ended up finding this place called Jardin du Thé…

No Internet

Tea from Jardin du Thé

So I had moved moved into my host families house and they didn’t have internet! I was dying to put up some of my earlier pictures from Paris and Grenoble. They told me I had to wait for one of their sons to get back home from Lyon so I had to find it in downtown Grenoble.

So with no internet I had decided this would be a great opportunity to view Grenoble and practice my French a bit by asking where I could find some WiFi or in French WeeFee. I got off at the stop “Maison du Tourisme” in downtown Grenoble and walked up random streets asking every vendor if they knew of a place where I could sit down to upload some pictures. No one seemed to know of a place until I stumbled on a random book store. I was buying some post cards to send back home and I asked the woman at the registrar if there was a place to use internet. She described a place that had some free WiFi right down the road so I followed her directions with the name she gave and showed up at the steps of Jardin du Thé, and life would be forever changed :) (okay maybe  a little dramatic but I did fall in love real quickly).

Just So Happened

ShawnVoyage at Jardin du Thé

Well I stepped in and I was just happy to be indoors from the cold and have a place with internet. I didn’t even bother to look at the menu or  really even have a craving for tea. I sat there for probably 15 minutes wondering how to get the internet working especially when the code seemed impossibly long and wasn’t working. It was frustrating when everybody around me did not speak  English and my waiter had a hard time understanding what I was trying to figure out!

I later found out that there was reason that the password code was so long. There were 4 separate lines of code and each code was one way of connecting to the internet. Turns out that I didn’t have to enter all the numbers, just 1 of those lines. All I could do is laugh at myself but I did get to put up some pictures and share my status in France.

I had stumbled on this place by accident but it turned out to be one of the highlights of my time in Grenoble… I remember that the first tea I had was  Japanese Vanilla tea and it was consistently one of my favorites (and apparently everyone else’s in Grenoble). Their tea choices were impressive and as the months went on I tried all kinds of teas I wouldn’t have tried back in the states. I could easily sit and enjoy a nice French dessert with 3 cups of tea for as little as 5 euros. Probably one of the cheapest activities I did while in France.

A Nice Place to Bring Friends

Over time I started bringing my study abroad friends and they told their friends and then this place became busier and busier! I kind of took pride in the fact that out of desperation to find internet I actually found a really cool spot to hang out. I went back and I would try new desserts/teas, bring my computer to work on assignments, brought my family who visited and started to talk to the guy who owned the place.

I never thought I would have become a fanatic tea drinker but now I can see how beneficial tea is. I think because tea is organic, has so many health benefits and there is so much variety is the reason I’m so passionate about it now. That one random by chance of going into that tea shop changed a portion of my life. I religiously drink hot tea and when I talk to my study abroad friends, Jardin du Thé is one of the experiences that people are always fond of.

Inside Jardin du Thé

By the end we had gone to Jardin du Thé so many times that the owner thanked me for stopping in that one random day and telling everybody I knew in Grenoble about it! When I left I decided to buy a minimum of 10 bags of tea to take home with me which I still have to this day. It’s experiences like these that really excite me about traveling. I was willing to be open-minded and it turned out to be one of the better experiences I had while in Grenoble. I can honestly say it made a better person for multiple reasons and it came out of total randomness.

So if you ever travel to Grenoble I definitely recommend going to Jardin du Thé, on Rue Millet for a cool place to hang out and sip some tea. You can even follow them on Facebook! The place is small and can be crowded on the weekend but it’s worth the wait. From first timers to tea aficionados, it’s definitely a Grenoble must!

images by: shawnvoyage