What we decided to do then was to stroll around now much talked about area from Huaihaizhong Road to Fuxing Road ( Here there are bunch of restaurants and shops that were transformed from old houses of the age of French settlement and find some nice restaurant for having dinner.

On a dim street, I was suddenly accosted by a person saying ‘Hey! You must be Ms. Seki.’ in Japanese with Chinese accent. It was no other than Mr. Zhang Shao Jun、an artist & graphic designer now active in Shanghai I introduced about in this Yasuko’s Room before.

He said, ‘ You know we must be connected by a strong luck to see each other by chance in this megalopolis having the population of 14million.’ As he said, it was such an amazing coincidence that I couldn’t deny something invisible that made us meet each other there. He said, ‘There’s a wonderful tea shop just newly opened, why don’t we go there for tea?’ So though both of us were with companions, we all went to the place about 30 meters away, which proved to be a cool tea-shop-house with a large garden.

The name of the shop specializing in pu-erh tea was ‘ Koen’ run by Mr. Zhang’s friend Mr.Kaku. According to Mr. Zhang, the family of Mr. Kaku has inherited the noble blood since the age of the Tang Dynasty and he himself is well known as a collector of the antique furniture of Ming Dynasty. He opened this shop this spring drastically remodeling a Western house in the area of Fuxing Road ( the area like Aoyama in Tokyo ). He put the various furniture of the Ming Age he has collected for making the interior of this shop.

Once entering it, we found ourselves in a different space. So far, the district of Huton where the future image of the city built with cutting edge technologies has been stressed. The most recent trend seems, however, to be to create something new based on the through understanding of the great past. Koen can be counted as one of the very symbols of such caf?.

As soon as we entered the shop, Mr. Zhang ushered us to the room exclusive to the shop’s owner at the far end of the second floor. There, Mr. Kaku　has treated various MVPs such as a former world champion of table tennis, famous artists, etc. to 100-year-old pu-erh tea. Mr.　Zhang, without paying any attention to such a fact, just took us to this special room and seated us, saying “ Let me introduce my most wonderful friend from Japan to you.” The shop’s owner, Mr. Kaku, in spite of our unexpected visit, warmly welcomed us offering us the precious 100-year-old pu-erh tea and nice Chinese cakes.

Chinese tea is very popular here in Japan now. Its people who had known only Oolong tea or jusmine tea until just a decade ago, are now drinking various Chinese teas such as green one, TEKANON-CHA, pu-erh tea that is said to make a great effect for health and so on. The Chinese culture of tea-drinking has come to attract the people’s attention, too. Accordingly the special tools for it have begun to be introduced here. I’m sure that the manners of Japanese tea ceremony especially those of drinking medium quality green tea were formed under the great influence of the traditional ways of Chinese tea drinking. There’s surprising similarity in the tools and the manners between the two tea culture.

This tea shop, Koen mainly serves its customers with pu-erh tea. Mr. Kaku says,
“pu-erh tea, drunk before going to bed, makes your body warm, which leads you to sound sleep. Of course, its effect to enhance metabolic functions can make it good for health and beauty.” What we did was to try not to waste this precious chance of drinking 100-year-old genuine pu-erh　tea by drinking one cup after another. As an expression of great thanks for it, I decided to introduce his shop in this column.

Oh, I know I cannot finish writing this article without touching upon design at all. As a matter of fact, I am completely ignorant of antique Chinese furniture, so I asked Mr. Zhang about it.

“The most special character of the furniture of Ming Dynasty Age is its simple powerfulness. The furniture of the following Qing Dynasty Era would become the one finished with much finer work . Many pieces of the furniture made in the Era of Ming Dynasty are without elaborated fine work given to the material. But I believe it’s this simplicity that attracts the people’s hearts living Modern age.”

Mr. Kaku is presiding a community called pu-erh　tea club whose base is here in this shop. He says he will be happy if his shop will be a foothold for the promotion of Shanghai Culture.

The report of this time will be just the introduction of a tea shop in Shanghai. If you visit Shanghai, please visit this shop by all means and enjoy drinking Chinese tea with the manners of traditional methods. You can have light meals there, too. Drinking 100-year-old genuine pu-erh　tea would be, however, impossible without the friend of great power, like Mr. Zhang’s.

I write the address and the phone number here. It hasn’t opened HP yet.
No.1315 Fuxing Road　　Tel.86-21-6445-4625