Philly Tea Shops

There are (at least) three tea shops in the Rittenhouse Square area of Philadelphia: Steep, Great Tea International, and Remedy. All 3 places sell tea by the ounce as well as by the cup. And none of them sell coffee.

Great Tea International is a taiwanese-style tea house on the "lower level" of Sansom Street, so you take a flight of steps down to get there. The inside is very... serene. Very...zen, perhaps. It's fairly dark inside--as there's very little natural light, with gentle music and the sound of water trickling from a small indoor fountain. There were two tables of customers, and each table was having a conversation, but it's the kind of place where if you talk too loudly, you feel like you're disturbing the peace. It seats around 15 people comfortably. In addition to tea, they sell pots and mugs, etc., plus cookies, sandwiches, and steamed buns (both sweet and savory).

Remedy is the "hippest" of the 3, I'd say. They've been around for about a year, according to the young woman I spoke with. It has the most steating (it could comfortably fit 34 people, including the sofas and the seats at the counter. All of the tables are for two, and there are 5 tables in the window.) The crowd is younger, mostly college-aged students, fairly mixed racially. People were doing everything from working alone on their laptops, studying for class, and having conversations with a friend. It's not a quiet place, but not as loud as some cafes I've been to. Fiona Apple's "Criminal" was playing as I walked into the shop. The large window along Sansom Street ensures a bright interior, muted a bit by the dark wood of the tables and floors. There's plenty of electric lighting too, including a gaudy, fluorescent orange chandelier in the middle of the room, for when it gets dark outside. When I got my cup of darjeeling, it came in a tall cup that I thought was glass, but when I went to pick it up it was surprisingly cool to the touch. The woman at the counter explained that it was double-walled plastic so you can pick it up without fear of getting burned. They also have free wi-fi with an excellent signal, so I didn't have to use my Treo to connect to the web in order to write this or upload the photos. There's a ceramic container with a lid on each table where you can put your teabags when they're finished steeping. The also sell cookies, sandwiches, and that sort of light-fare. Of the three places, it was the only one i really wanted to sit down in, so I decided to stay and work on this article.

Steap seems focussed on selling loose tea by the ounce, plus teapots, mugs, and other tea-related paraphernalia, although you can still buy tea by the cup. It's more of a tea boutique than a tea house. There's not much seating, and the two tables in the window are actually covered with tea pots and cups for sale, so you can't sit there. As a result, it's more the kind of place where you go, buy, and leave, rather than hang out. That's not a criticism; it's just a description. In fact, its proximity to Rittenhouse Square makes it the perfect place to get a cup-to-go while you sit on a park bench on a cool autumn day. The owner is very knowledgeable and friendly, and eager to help you find something you'll like. She's clearly focussed on service, and she sells a very large variety of high-quality teas.

All three are comparably priced for a cup of tea (in the $2.50 range. If that sounds expensive, it really isn't, esp when you consider what people pay all the time for a coffee or latte at Starbucks and its ilk.) I highly recommend all three. They simply have three very different personalities (personali-teas? sorry.)

Remedy Tea
1628 Sansom Street
Monday thru Friday: 7:30am - 7pm
Saturday: 9am - 8pm
http://www.remedytea.com/

Great Tea International
1724 Sansom Street
Monday - Saturday, 11am - 6:30pm
http://www.great-tea.net

Steap
111 South 18th Street
Monday - Friday, 10:00 am - 5:30 pm
Saturday, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Sunday, closed
http://www.wayneteasalon.com/


(note: for the purposes of this article, I only looked at places that sold tea by the cup, so it doesn't include places like the House of Tea, which is the best place in Philly to buy loose tea, and I didn't include anywhere that also sold coffee. Too often, places that sell coffee become overrun by coffee lovers, and tea becomes secondary. If you know of another great tea house in Philly, let me know!)

Bush and Clinton receive Philadelphia Liberty Medal 2006

Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton received the Liberty Medal tonite in Philadelphia down at the Constitution Center. Yours truly was there to record the event to his best ability, given that he didn't have a ticket to get inside. They'd actually been setting up for the event for a few days, but as of yesterday you couldn't get inside for security reasons.

I had to come down Market Street, because the police--although surprisingly friendly after my run-in with the bastard cop who wouldn't let me get close enough to take photos of a West Philadelphia house fire a couple weeks ago--wouldn't let me through on Race.

There were surprisingly few protesters. Well, I say surprisingly few, but really, what's to protest? No matter what you thought of these two guys when they were president, they've been doing undeniable good since then, raising money for the Tsunami victims and the victims of Hurricane Katrina. There were a couple guys at 6th and Market who were protesting the media (who was nowhere to be seen, btw, because they had nice comfy seats inside the event). I took their photo, and then as I walked past them, one of the guys kept shouting at me, "Who are you with? Who are you with?" wanting to know which media organization I was covering the event. I just kept walking.

Later on in the evening I saw a couple young-ish people carrying hand-made posters protesting our current president and protesting religious zealotry, but they were just holding them down at their sides. I later found out there was some sort of protest earlier in the evening at Rittenhouse Square, so they must have come from there.



I walked around the outside first, trying to figure out where the presidents would be driving in from. There were really only two possible entrances, so i stood more or less between them, about a half block from each, so I could get some good photos when the big-wigs arrived. First an ambulance came in, and I took a picture, wondering if maybe they were sneaking them in that way. But not too much later, there were some dark-colored cars with lights and sirens moving quickly down Race Street, turning onto 6th. Dammit! I got a few photos, but nothing great, and certainly no sightings of any men who were formerly the most powerful in the world. I was going to leave, but I decided to wait a few minutes longer. And then a bunch more vehicles, from a motorcycle escort to SUVs packed with a cadre of secret service agents (you could tell they were secret service because they had that coiled wire going into one ear like they do on the West Wing). I took photos, but no presidents got out of the cars, so i figured they must have been in the first group of dark sedans. Turns out that the first group of vehicles was Bush, and the second group was Clinton. Smart thinking, Secret Service. Don't put all your eggs in one basket (or all your presidents in one sedan), after all.

It was still 20 minutes before 7, when the event was scheduled to start, so I walked around to the side where I could get a view of the stage (yes! the ceremony was taking place outside, so i'd actually catch a glimpse of something!)

Along with me in the crowd out by the fence at 5th and Arch, I saw Dave Schrattweiser (Fox News - you'll remember him from his coverage of the Philadelphia mafia and those corrupt trashmen) although he wasn't there in an official capacity. You could tell because he was dressed all normal, and there was NO news media outside the event. Everyone was in there with the big wigs. (That's right folks--PhillyHappening is the only place to go for coverage of the stuff happening AWAY from the actual excitement.) Interestingly, Dave was eventually let through the fence by some cops. Clearly he has friends where it counts. I also saw basketball legend Dr. J. -- Julius Irving. I just barely managed to get a really lousy photo of him before he turned away. It doesn't totally look like him, but it's him.



Lots and lots of security, from city police, to park rangers, to secret service. I kept hearing the philly police joking with each other, saying things like, "So you actually decided to work a little bit for a change!" or "Why don't you try wearing your uniform once in a while." They all seemed to find it very humorous and laughed a lot at this sort of joke.

Everything started on time, and the introductory speakers went fairly quickly, although there were quite a few of them, plus two singers. (the first singer, who sang a song I didn't know, did a good job. The woman who followed, singing "America the Beautiful," was fairly awful from where I was standing, but admittedly the sound quality wasn't quite optimal at that distance.) Two guys you've never heard of spoke first, and then came Mayor John Street, and Governor Ed Rendell (We miss you, Ed! Come back to Philly!) and a woman who partly talked and partly sang. I didn't catch her name. Then came Senators Specter (yay!) and Santorum (boo!). Then Charlie Gibson from the Today Show (or is it Good Morning America?) who introduced a short film about Bush and Clinton. And finally the presidents themselves. I took as many photos as I could throughout the event, but my view was very narrow. I had a small shot of the stage through some trees. Plus it was very dark by that point, so I had to ramp up the ISO on my camera to capture any shots at all, let alone good ones. There was also a projection screen set up on the lawn beyond the fence so that the little people could get a better view of the stage.

I headed out not long after Clinton started talking. I wanted to stay for the whole thing, but I was getting colder and hungrier, so I took a few parting photos, and walked to Walnut Street to catch the 21 bus home.

Welcome

Welcome to PhillyHappening. We'll be covering various events going on in Philadelphia, PA. Enjoy!

Protesters at Equality Forum 2006

I just got home from a fantastic day at "Sunday Out," the street-festival portion of Equality Forum. I ran into a few old friends I haven't seen in ages, met some interesting new people, saw a bunch of cute boys, talked with the protesters, and took about 350 photographs.


I do not like the protesters, Sam-I-Am. One day, I hope we'll look back at these photos of these hateful signs and feel the same way about them that we feel now when we look back at photographs of signs that say "Whites Only." They have no business coming to our events and disrupting them with their hateful messages. The come in the guise of people who love us, who simply want to save our souls. But all they ever do is tell us that we're "abominations," that we're evil, that we're going to hell. I've grown somewhat accustomed to their presence at gay events, and that bothers me most of all. Can you imagine a black pride rally, and the Klan showing up, and all the black people there just quietly accepting their presence???

I don't mind if they're simply present, quietly handing out pamphlets. And that's what a few are doing, but the main group of protesters walks around carrying large signs containing offensive, anti-gay language, and preaching loudly through a megaphone. It may be legal, but it is rude and it is immoral, and it is wrong.

Here are the loudest:

Michael Marcavage:

Michael is with "Repent America". Several years ago when he was still a student at Temple University, he was involuntarily committed to a state mental hospital after some sort of Christian protest he was involved in on campus. Why they let him out of the hospital, we'll never know. Today, he believes that the government should "uphold God's law" by rounding up gay people and killing them.

Jason Storm:




I don't know what ministry Jason is from, but then: who cares? The thing you probably notice right away about Jason Storm is that he's smoking hot. I mean, I never like goatees, but I'd totally do Jason Storm. You can see above the photo where he's looking right at me. I'm hoping that's lust in his eyes. Jason came to Penn's campus a year or two ago, and I was somewhat impressed with him. He can be charismatic at times. And on a college campus, I have no problem with him. The problem at gay events is that it's hard to take him seriously when he's doing is gosh-darned best to ruin the day of everyone else present. And he says awful things. For example he quotes the high suicide rate among gay teens as evidence that there's something fundamentally (no pun intended) wrong with them, rather than as evidence that so many impressionable gay teens internalize the horrible, hate-filled message that we are evil abominations who don't deserve to live. I completely lost my temper at him last year at the same event and screamed back at him before I even realized I'd opened my mouth. Also, did I mention that I'd do him?

Some other protesters worthy of special mention:

Denny and Merv:














Denny (left) was standing at 5th and Market, quietly handing out religious tracts. Ironically (and I told him this, too), I came *SO* close to wearing that same shirt that he was wearing today! Thank god I went with the green polo shirt instead, right? Anyway, I spoke with him for a while, and I was impressed with his non-confrontational style. He and Merv come from a ministry in Virginia. I later learned that Denny has 10 people (or is it 10 children?) in his family. Apparently they mostly live on donations that come in from around the country. I spoke with Merv, too. He's originally from around Reading, PA, apparently, but I forget where he says he moved to. Both were extremely nice, and neither was from the same ministry as Michael Marcavage or Jason Storm above, although they were familiar with both. Denny said they'll probably hand out 4000-5000 tracts today. And I know from experience that they have to buy those tracts--they're not free. As you may know, i collect religious tracts. I started collecting them at gay events, actually. The idea was that if *I* took a pamphlet, then that's one less that someone else could take and potentially be poisoned by.

And that's a great segue into our next specially-featured protester:

Caleb:

Hands off, boys; he's Christian. Caleb, it turns out, is Denny's son, but I didn't know that at first. Still, it explains the scraggly beginnings of a beard that Caleb is growing. The encounter started when I saw Chumley wearing an official Equality Forum staff pass and a microphone headset, rushing off down Market Street. My spidey sense tingled: Something's afoot! So I headed off after him. It quickly became apparent that he was following a guy (Caleb) who was handing out religious tracts and collecting them from the recipients. Indeed, Chumley had a stack of 10 or 15 in his hand already. I asked if I could have them, for my collection, but since he didn't know me from Adam at the time, he said no, possibly figuring me for another Christian protester. A woman followed closely behind, and I followed closely behind her. We all stopped walking when we'd gone halfway around the block, at something (4th?) & Chestnut. There the conversation began:


Chumley made it plain--much to Caleb's chagrin--that he would continue to follow him as long as he kept handing out those religious tracts at Equality Forum. Chumley was eventually called away, leaving the woman (Amena) and I with Caleb. We stood and talked on that corner for at least a half hour. It was actually a very pleasant, very interesting conversation. Obviously, Amena and I disagreed with Caleb, and we debated back and forth, each of us explaining our view of God, trying to find flaws in the other side's argument, and so on. Caleb seemed quite surprised that we even believed in God. So right there it was nice to be able to help humanize gay people to the fundamentalists who preach against us and disabuse them of the myths and misconceptions they have about us. And we learned about him--a 16 year old from a large family, who has a job framing houses, but will probably one day give that up in favor of doing outreach, and he's homeschooled (no surprise there) and he's never seen The Matrix (another big surprise), and he thinks Fred Phelps is evil (a surpise at last). And this conversation had the added benefit of occupying the time of someone who would otherwise be out trying to brainwash other gay people. We were right across the street from Xando, and I offered to buy all 3 of us a coffee if they'd like to join me (I was getting hot, plus tired of standing up for so long. It's 3 hours later now and I'm still exhausted.) They declined, alas, and the conversation continued for a bit until we all returned to the street fair. I was extremely impressed with Caleb. He's only 16, but he clearly knows what he believes, he's very familiar with the bible, and you have to admit it takes a heck of a lot of guts to go out and minister to thousands of people who basically hate you. Too bad he's so misguided.

Some other protesters:



Oh, and I love this. It happens quite a bit with these protestes. You go to take their photograph, and they hide their faces. Wow. They must be SOOOOOO proud to be doing God's work, huh?




Now, I don't want you to think that everyone at the street festival just stood quietly and ignored these dillweeds (can I say that?).

I don't know this woman, but I love her. She stood and watched the "Christian" protesters for a moment, then she went and proudly stood next to them while displaying her flyer for transgendered people who are transitioning. I gave her a hug:


This guy was walking backwards while he verbally engaged the protesters, who were themselves walking through the street fair. He was clearly angry, and justifiably so:



This guy had only two words--Sieg Heil! :


The angriest of the counter-protesters. This man was not taking shit from ANYONE, and least of all the faux-Christians who pretend to "love" us. He was just screaming at them as he accusatorially pointed his finger at them. The crowd applauded him:


Another man who yelled back:


These guys have been around for the last few "christian" protests. I'm not sure who they are, but they're great. They use their banners to hide the "Christians" from view, and they chant and shout to drown out the hateful messages the protesters are spewing.


Here's Chumley, using an air horn to drown out the voices of the protesters:


This guy made his own sign right there on the spot and proudly stood directly in front of the protesters. I think the sign speaks for itself:

And finally, the people who really DO believe that God loves us. They lined the street and guarded the front of Christ Church, where MCC was holding a religious ceremony.





Heroes, all.