The German port city of Hamburg delivers a surprising tea treasure.

In my mind, Germany is neither a ‘tea’ nor ‘coffee’ country; if we’re talking beverage-related cultural stereotypes, Germany is synonymous with the quaffing of large quantities of beer. On the few occasions I have been to Germany, I’ve certainly enjoyed a stein of the frothy amber, which is best accompanied by a pretzel as big as one’s head.

This is not to say tea is uncommon in Germany – far from it. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a cafe or venue that serves unblended tea and, in some cases, you may not even see Camellia sinensis on the menu, such is Germany’s preference for fruits, flowers and herbs with or without our favourite leaf.

Of the dozens of cafe menus I’ve examined in three cities (Berlin, Munich, Hamburg), most had one unadorned black tea of Indian or Sri Lankan origin, usually Darjeeling or Assam, and a range of black tea blends featuring fruits (berries were a favourite) and/or flowers (hibiscus featured heavily). I was lucky to find green tea on occasion, though it also commonly came blended. And often classed as tee were the herbal infusions and tisanes, which regularly outnumbered the camellia leaf blends.

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to visit a whole lot of teahouses on a recent trip to Hamburg but I did get tipped off about one on a city guided tour. On the historic Speicherstadt island, just a few blocks from Germany’s most popular tourist attraction (that would be Miniatur Wunderland, the biggest little train display in the world), is Meßmer Momentum a refined teahouse with a small museum (ie extensive information display) attached.

I must admit at this point that my German is pretty much confined to “ich bin zwölf jahre alt” (“I am 12 years old”) and “wo ist die toilette?” (“where is the toilet?”) and the numbers one to nine as that’s all I remember of the term of German I did in Year 7, so what I could gather of the museum needs to be understood through that tiny lens.

Basically, though, Hamburg built its fortune as a trading port, a very important one for central Western Europe over centuries, so it’s no surprise that tea and spices came through the city in the early days of China-Europe trade relations. Thus, Hamburgers managed to get their hands on the stuff before a lot of other places. Many Hamburgers were also rich merchants who could afford imported luxuries like tea, and Meßmer was one of the brands that brought it in.

Whether the blending happened early in the piece or not, I cannot say, but I attribute much of the general tea-drinking preferences to the German inclination towards health and the tradition of steeping plants for healing.

At Momentum I enjoyed my giant pot of bai xue long (snow dragon) tea with a couple of cranberry scones topped with lemon curd. After all, it wouldn’t be a tea experience in Germany without the consumption of berries, would it?

This article originally appeared in AUSTCS enews 23 August 2017.