Imperial Tea Court at 1511 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94709

Contacts

Address:
1511 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94709
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Phone number:
+1 510-540-8888

Website:
imperialteacourtberkeley.com

Categories:
Establishment   Food   Cafe  

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Reviews

• JKay GreenStarsProject
  ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
  Could have been better – may have been an off-day (4/5 green stars).
  I didn’t know much about the imperial tea court at the time of an impromptu visit. Having looked it up, I can tell you that there are two branches (the other is in the SF Ferry Building) and that owner Roy Fong is an aficionado of Chinese tea. We had a green onion pancake, veggie fried rice, vegetarian eggplant, tea for two, and red bean paste steamed buns (total: $47.50). I thought the pancake was fine – I’ve had quite a few and this ranked in the middle. The fried rice was not great at all – no caramelization, not much flavor. The eggplant sauce was interesting but a bit too saucy – I normally wouldn’t complain about this but the sauce was an intense kind of black bean sauce and was a bit much. I’m assuming it was homemade but the effect was akin to pouring an entire jar of rich, salty black bean sauce over some eggplant. Perhaps the experience would have been better if we’d just focused on the tea (pu-erh. Roy’s favorite, apparently) and steamed buns. Overall, not a great experience or value.
  
  I’m also giving them 4/5 Green Stars for social and environmental impact, based on these reasons:
  • I had read that the Imperial Tea Court is one of the few places that served an entirely organic/sustainable dim sum menu. That report is a bit old though and I’m not sure if they still do it.
  • Some items on the menu are listed as organic (greens, brown rice option) but it’s not clear if they still go as far as they once did.
  • For example, from 2009 article: “The shrimp are wild from the Gulf of Mexico. The ground pork is from Niman Ranch. Slab pork and beef are from Prather Ranch. Green onion pancakes, as well as all the dumpling wrappers, are made from organic flour.”
  • There’s not a lot of info on the menu – if the above info still applies, it would be nice to know this.
  • Similarly, although Roy is one of the most famous tea importers (and is also working on setting up a farm in CA) I don’t see a lot of discussion about sustainability or trade practices (fair prices for growers) on the menu, website or his blog. They do stock some organic teas but considering his influence, would be nice to see some info beyond that (for all of their teas).

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