Shui Tang

Shui Tang opened in 2009 on Spiegelgasse, a lane in Zurich's old town between the Hirschengraben and the Limmat, a short walk from the Grossmünster. It is run by Meng-Lin Chou, who is from Taiwan and worked in the tea wholesale trade before opening her own house; she still supplies tea shops in Germany and Switzerland. The name, 水美堂, means the place of beautiful water.

She chooses the teas herself at origin or works directly with the Taiwanese tea master Huangtan Chen, and every listing publishes the same set of fields: region and country, harvest season and vintage year, brewing temperature and the vessel the house recommends, gaiwan or gongfu cha. The rule of thumb they publish is simple — unfermented teas in the gaiwan, fermented ones gongfu style. Most teas are sold in 50 g; the expensive old-tree pu-erh drops to 25 g and the pressed cakes go up to 100 or 200.

Aged tea is the house speciality: stored oolongs and pu-erh listed by year, with a Dong Ding from 1981 and Ali Shan from 1999 and 2008 on the shelf. Alongside the tea there is a teaware range built around Yixing zisha pots — they publish their own explainer on the clay and state that they only sell pots whose origin can be traced — plus gaiwans, bowls and tea boats. There is also a Japanese tea room inside the shop, where Chou, a member of the Urasenke school, serves matcha in Raku bowls, and a standing programme of courses and tastings that has run every year since 2017.