ANMO Art Cha – German tea shop review

[Bok]

First of all, full disclosure, I do know the owner of this shop, but will nonetheless give my honest and personal opinion on what they have on offer. Aside from them being friends, I do think they have some things of interest.

Anmo’s approach is more that of a curated selection, rather than a generalist approach, although they carry a little bit of everything. Various teas are the results of collaborations with specialists in their own tea niche, which makes the offer quite eclectic and interesting. This quirkiness is maybe also due to the fact that both founders are also artists, reflected in their presentation and approach to tea and tea culture. They also frequently host exhibitions or tea related art events. They have a full disclosure policy on their sources, always clearly stating where a tea is sourced from, not just repackaging it as some others do.

I have sampled a broad selection of their offering over the last year and here are my conclusions:

Puerh is mostly sourced from Sunsing in HK, an established brand with decent teas. This is one of their main focus at Anmo, so their Puerh is all good in my opinion. The advantage for buyers in Germany being that there is a physical shop where they can try those beforehand. Actually, most of the teas can be tried there, just like you would in Asia.

Japanese teas are their second focus, one of the founders is Japanese, so they are able to source some teas that are hard to find, even within Japan. I have had all their Gyokurus and some Sencha, Hongcha and others. Ippodo is one of their more well known sources, but I prefer their smaller farm sourced teas, like the organic Gyokurus from Asada-En. Some quite special things on offer, like White Gykuru and a 100y+ tree single origin Sencha from a temple garden outside of Kyoto. A lot of them I have mentioned in the last few months elsewhere, without citing the source at the time.

The temple tea is real special and deserves special mention, but it is limited and sold out quickly, not sure if it will ever make its way to the online shop… The first time I had a sencha where I would want more of.

Another partner is called Tealeafster, sourcing some Chinese teas for them. I did particularly like the unsmoked Lapsang and Jinjunmei. Interesting red teas and a welcome change to my usual Taiwanese reds and definitely more interesting than Japanese red teas.

Brings me over to the Taiwanese teas, which I haven’t had much of, so I can’t comment much.

Korean teas are another collaboration with a guy called Dado. Kind of an eye opener for me, I did not think much of Korean teas before… their green Tea is quite nice, more like a Chinese green like Longjing. The black teas are more like Japanese ones, clean and without major faults, maybe just a bit uninteresting…

Teaware selection is still in the progress of being developed, again an eclectic mix of contemporary, German-clay Japanese-made, Japanese, Chinese and vintage/antique styles.

All in all I’d say worth a browse and some unusual teas can be found, as well as another option for EU-based tea friends. Customs can be a major headache for European customers, so worth considering some else taking the brunt of it and deal with them in your place…

https://anmo-art-cha.com/

[Tea Adventures]

I’ve had some samples from them and they were really enjoyable. They have some white tea from Sichuan and it’s unlike other aged whites.

I have also tried one of their shou bricks (from Sunsing in HK) and was amazed by it. The flavours were rich, deep and oh so earthy.

They have just launched their webshop and I will definitely place an order in the near future. For me, personally, only positive experiences with their teas so I’m curious to try more of them.

[swordofmytriumph]

I really love unique teas, I'll give them a try.