Shang Tea

We stopped in here to pick up a Christmas gift for a tea-​lover and walked out as two tea-​lovers ourselves! The customer service here is superb. We had no idea what we were looking for and instead of shoving a box in our hands and letting us be on our way, the owner sat us down for a tasting and chatted with us about the farm in China and our latest trip to Taiwan. We tried 2 different teas and they tasted NOTHING like the boxes I’ve bought at the grocery store. Flavorful, zesty, and so much more than hot water. I was quite impressed. I even bought their custom made porcelain cups that have an all porcelain filter that nestles in the cup and you can make your tea without making a mess. I just put the leaves in, fill with hot water from Keirug, let it steep and then bam!.. Delicious tea! It tastes just like it does in the store and while the tea is pricey itself, I can use each scoop of leaves 4 – 5 times before replacing it. I just store the used leaves in the filter in the cup and keep in the fridge until I want more! My favorite is the tangerine blossom.
I’m obsessed and couldn’t be happier. What a fun find within Crown Center!

Shang Tea is a brilliant reminder that a cup of tea brewed with skill and passion is more than a drink, and borders on the spiritual. There are places that brew great tea, and places that deliver great tea as an experience, and Shang Tea is the latter.
Their selection of loose leaf tea rivals that of more chain-​y places like teavana, without sacrificing an ounce of quality or the staff’s knowledge of the tea. The staff know every tea intimately, and will gladly offer recommendations and history on all of the teas they offer. They will gladly brew you a sample of any you want to try, and make the experience of buying tea as relaxing and fun as drinking it.
They also serve brewed tea, brewed with care and an unmatched attention to quality. Ask the server what they recommend, I haven’t been in once where they didn’t have something new or rare brewing that expanded my horizons. This is my favorite tea spot in Kansas City, both for brewed and loose leaf tea.

Why do the best things in life always command a premium price? Because they are premium. If you are looking for a place that has an absolutely outstanding loose leave tea selection and tea accessories to help you brew your tea, this is you place.

What a wonderful find. Tucked away inside the Crown Center shops, the staff is super friendly and you’ll find yourself inhaling in calmness as soon as you walk in.
I got the white tea to-​go and it was $ 3. Good size. Delicious and soothing. I will return!

The prices are horrid unless you’re like most reviewers with the ‘yelp app’ who can afford such broad financial freedom. I still love the quality of the tea, and might make purchases from Shang Tea when I get more $atan bucks.

Wonderful surprise to find this gem of a tea shop here. Friendly staff. Wonderful aroma. Tea sources from the owner’s fields in China.

This place is amazing both because of the tea and because of the people who work there. Some of the best tea I have ever had and yes you really can get 4 or sometimes more steppings with one serving of leafs. A must visit.

I’ve been a tea drinker for over 32 years. When I found Shang tea, my search for the perfect tea was over. The pure, organic teas are spectacular. I highly recommend you visit the store in Crown Center, Kansas City and enjoy the Shang Tea experience.

I now live in South Pasadena. And where do I go to to get tea?! SHANG TEA! I order it online far in advance of running out! On a trip visiting a friend I bought some «store tea». Bleh!
Sheng tea is still the best I have found!!! It’s so good & flavorful I brew it 3 – 4 times. Amazing tea.

My mom lives in Kansas City, and introduced me to this shop a few years ago, and I haven’t bought tea anywhere else since. When I visit her, it is one of our first stops so I can load up (even though they also have an online store) and bring it back to Philadelphia with me. Great staff, wonderful tea and other great items. Can’t say enough good things about them. Enjoy!

Finally I have found a PURE tea place that does not try to mask the bitterness and real taste of tea by dumping it down with some sweet fruity flavor. No, I am not a fan of those strawberry green tea, blueberry acai red tea bla bla bla. *think teavana or celestial’*
When it comes to tea, I like mine pure. The Pao blossom here is amazing! The flavor is smooth, and floral like with the right amount of sweetness without taking away the authenticity of the tea.
The employees here are very helpful and friendly too! You may ask them to brew you some tea if you like to try some before buying :)
I can feel my purse getting lighter already!

This store is the diamond in the sea of tchotchke shops in Crown Center. The owner, Shang, greeted us and sat us down for a tea tasting that rivals the best wine tasting experience out in Napa. His passion for the quality of the tea and products in his shop is palpable. The teas have a wonderful, clean taste and are grown organically in the mountains of China. Shang has also designed his own steeping mug that is short of genius. The other half of the store has some very nice jewelry and clothing.
This is now my go to tea shop in the KC area!

This tea will ruin your life. I recently made a cup for my aunt and she told me days later that all of her teas at home taste dirty, salty and bitter now. It is kind of like eating pickles your entire life and biting into a fresh cucumber for the first time. Yes. It is that good. I love the double walled tea brewer Shang sold me as well.

I can’t believe how fantastic this place is. I’ve been an occasional tea drinker for as long as I can remember. I decided recently to step it up a notch and try some loose leaf teas again. I stumbled across some reviews here and all all the rants and raves are true. I walked in and was immediately offered a seat by the owner. He shared several different teas with me, described the differences of each variety (all of which were delicious), and how to create the perfect cup. All of his teas are grown on his own tea farm in Fujian Province, China. Wow! Each tea I tried was great, better than any I’ve EVER had. Seriously. No bitter after taste, no matter how long it steeped. I’ve always had to add at least a little sugar to my tea, not with this. It’s freakishly good. I opted for the White Peony and can’t wait to go back and try more. Excellent service, outstanding tea, and fairly priced. A definite must for anyone that likes tea.

I have been buying my tea here for about 2 years now. I used to frequent another well known tea establishment up until I found this place by accident one Christmas.
If you want the finest loose leaf tea attainable in town visit this place in Crown Center. They are incredibly knowledgeable and helpful to everyone. They excel at the white tea. An extremely supple and complex tea. But I really can’t find a better green or red anywhere else in town. He has his own tea fields in China and the quality has be quite high and consistent.
The problem is that if you are on the road and have to drink someone else’s tea. Well they all seem to pale in comparison. And I’m talking like Keystone Light vs. Hoegaarden as a comparison.
I really can’t see myself drinking a Tea Republic ever again. Nor the swill they try to palm off at Starbucks.

I am not a tea-​whore. Yet. I’m still pretty much a slut, unable to commit and willing to try anything. You hate it compared to how much I love it. But even with my VAST amount of experiences, Shang Tea rates in my top experiences of all time.
It was happy serendipity that led me to this place, I literally stumbled into it. The staff were friendly and warm, and without any pressure were delighted to let me sample anything I desired. I desired a lot. While they did have a few green teas, they really shine with their whites. I was fascinated by the details of where the plants were grown, how they were prepared, and even which teas are used for which occasions. I don’t live in Kansas City, so I was delighted to find out they have a website and allow you to order online. I continue to get my fix even though I’m back in Colorado (land of hippies and green tea, but nothing to match this place!) Every penny is well spent, and even if you’re not a tea person, you can’t deny they sell many beautiful pieces of jade, exquisite pots and sets for the tea-​lover in your life, and some mesmerizing artwork. I wish I had more than two thumbs up to give it!

I love tea, and when I say that I don’t mean that I buy celestial seasonings every now and again I mean I LOVE it. I have a whole cabinet just for my tea that is how much I love it.
When I found Shang Tea Co. I put my skeptics hat on. I am a hard critic and not any tea will do. Many places can have a good white or green and that is okay, but my taste buds are always on the lookout for something exceptional and I found that here.
Even though I love all teas, white is my favorite, and that is what this small tea shop specializes in. I entered the shop and the owner ushered me over to a table to try not just one or two teas, but every single tea in the store.
I tried several white teas flavored with flowers indigenous only to certain areas of China, and the flavor was rich and complex. I bought several different teas on my first visit which is rare for me.
They also have a few green teas, and despite a limited selection of teas, each one was wonderful and a top choice tea. The tea leaves were dried and stored correctly and they had an excellent cut and color.
Besides the teas, they also had an assortment of jade jewelry of which a good deal is quite lovely and would make excellent gifts.
Shang Tea Co. will have a customer for some time in me.

Shang Tea/​Quen Stone is a great treasure in Kansas City. For those who crave wonderful Chinese teas, Shang offers the best from his tea plantation in Fujian. You can pick some teas you would like to sample and have them brew for your tasting pleasure. While brewing Lily, or Shang will talk to you about the tea, history, the oxidation process or what ever else you would like to know. You can also practice your Chinese or pick up a few phrases. On the other side is some of the most beautiful pieces of jade. He has artisans in Beijing that work on these pieces. A must to peruse.

It was a great store to walk into — it had a very clean feel to it with hundreds of mint-​green boxes lining the dark wooded shelves. A woman was quietly sitting at her work desk scooping tea into sample bags. The store shares space with another business owned by the same person, a jewelry business, but it was the tea and the overall design of this half that drew me in.
She greeted me and I asked her where she gets her teas. She didn’t hear me right but told me anyways that she was scooping tea samples for $ 1.00 because lately customers would rather have a taste of a few different teas than an entire case of one flavor. I told her the idea was great — you can mix and match different tea flavors for practically nothing. The samples were large samples, they were in 6-​inch pouches, tons of them, neatly places around her work space.
Shang Tea also sells these ornate porcelain tea cups — the most beautiful sets alongside classic American tea kettles (and there’s no comparison here — the Chinese patterns are so beautiful and interestingly shaped compared to the large American kettle in burnt orange). And the prices were so generous for what it is. Their website has a section called «Shang’s Journal» that describes the owner’s tea-​journey from China — it’s an amazing story to read if you are curious.
The woman offered to brew me a cup of anything I wanted on the house and I refused, I didn’t want to bother her for long — but I wish I had taken her up on it because later on in the day as I walked by the place again I saw her and another customer drinking tea and talking in the window. Just another wonderfully random experience at Crown Center — one of many, of course, but very different somehow from everything else.

I was quite surprised when I ran into this place at the mall. I had never been in a tea shop before. When going in I was greeted and asked what I was looking for. Shang helped me and after I told him what I normally drink he brought me over to a table and let me try some. It was really good stuff. When I went to pay, I noticed a big poster with a guy in a tea field. Then looked again… It was Shang! Pretty funny but this guy is from China and knows his stuff.
I took the tea home and I gotta say it is some good stuff. It’s a bit pricey, but for the whole leaf tea (what I normally drink) there is no dust or small particles. Just whole leaf tea. The good stuff. If your not in the area, check out his web site.