A lucky day for tea lovers at this bar
Asking for milk or sugar with your tea at Cha Garden in the Lucky Dragon Hotel & Casino is like asking a Scottish bartender to add ice to a tumbler of his finest whiskey. It’s gauche.
It would be a shame to add anything to any of the more than 50 kinds of teas served at the Las Vegas hotel’s tea bar because the point is to savor their nuances. Most of the teas come from China, and some are available only to the country’s ruling elite.
“Lots of them I never saw in China,” said Lola Zhao, the resort’s tea sommelier who grew up working in her uncle’s tea shop in Shenyang in northeast China.
“Some of them I’ve never heard of.”
If you’re going to indulge at Cha Garden, plan to spend enough time to taste several infusions of the same tea during the gong fu service.
That involves brewing tea — the leaves, stems and buds — in small pots known as gaiwan. Guests sip from cups that hold only about an ounce, but the service may involve as many as eight tastings. For each cup, the tea is steeped a bit longer.
“No one’s even attempted to do something of this nature — to have this many teas, but more importantly, to have this many high-quality teas,” said Joe Muscaglione, the hotel’s beverage manager.
“Some of them come from trees that are hundreds and hundreds of years old,” said Muscaglione, who spent decades researching wine before focusing on tea. “We know the tea grower’s name, the day they picked it, the elevation and the geographical location.”
He’s especially proud of the Qinba Wuhao tea, a Lucky Dragon exclusive from Shaanxi Province. In the fields, ladybugs have replaced pesticides, and the picking and processing are done by hand.
Tea service starts at $12 a pot — that’s for multiple infusions — and tops out at $58, depending on the tea. Guests also can buy teas. Muscaglione thinks some of his best customers will be visitors from China, who can’t get the same quality at home.
Cha Garden is open 9 a.m.-11 p.m. weekdays and until 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Reservations are not required.