Steeping

San Francisco · Est. 2021

Steeping.

A quiet room. Clay pots. Afternoon light. Two hours to disappear into the unhurried precision of the gaiwan.

Reserve Your Seat at the Table

The Collection

Leaves worth lingering over.

Dark twisted oolong tea leaves arranged on unglazed ceramic beside a small Yixing pot

Wuyi Rock Oolong

Fujian · China

Roasted slowly over charcoal until the leaves carry the memory of the mountain they grew on. Mineral, persistent, ash-kissed.

95°C · 30s rinse · 6 infusions

Steam curling upward from a celadon gaiwan on a cypress tea tray in soft afternoon light

The Pour

Ceremony · Fragment

Water at 88°C arcs from the kettle lip into the gaiwan bowl. The room holds its breath.

patience

Pale jade green oolong leaves in a white ceramic gaiwan with condensation on the lid

High Mountain Alishan

Taiwan · 1,200m

Grown in cloud and cold. Each cup is green and floral and impossibly clean — like breathing mountain air through silk.

85°C · 45s · 5 infusions

Delicate silver-white tea buds floating in a pale glass teacup against white ceramic

Silver Needle

Fuding · Fujian

Only the first bud of spring. Downy, silver, almost weightless. The quietest tea we carry.

80°C · 60s · 4 infusions

Two people sitting across a worn linen table with ceramic cups and a celadon teapot between them

Afternoon Table

Saturday · 3:00pm

The light comes from the left. Someone is taking notes. No one is looking at a phone.

presence

Dark compressed pu-erh tea cake with wrapper partially unwrapped showing aged dark leaves

2019 Menghai Pu'erh

Yunnan · Aged

Five years pressed. Earth, leather, the forest floor after rain. A tea that has been somewhere.

99°C · 20s rinse · 8+ infusions

Upcoming Seatings

Reserve your seat at the table.

Each gathering is limited. Seats shown are accurate. When a session fills, it fills.

Lin Meizhen pouring dark Wuyi oolong into a row of small white ceramic cups on a wooden tray

Rock OolongMarch 8, 2026 · 2:00 – 4:00 PM

Wuyi Rock Oolong Session

Pouring master · Lin Meizhen

Master Lin walks guests through four infusions of Da Hong Pao, tracing how fire and rock shape a cup. Charcoal-roasted, mineral-deep. Twelve seats. Cypress tables.

3 seats remaining

12 total

Chen Bowen holding a glass teapot with silver needle tea buds floating in pale gold water

White TeaMarch 15, 2026 · 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Silver Needle & Silence

Pouring master · Chen Bowen

A morning session built around the quietest white tea in our collection. No talking for the first thirty minutes. Chen Bowen has been pouring Silver Needle for eleven years.

7 seats remaining

10 total

Wang Lihua unwrapping a pressed pu-erh cake at a cedar table with ceramic cups arranged nearby

Pu'erhMarch 22, 2026 · 3:00 – 5:00 PM

Aged Pu'erh Afternoon

Pouring master · Wang Lihua

Wang Lihua opens a 2019 Menghai cake for the first time at Steeping. Earth, leather, forest floor. One seat remaining. This one fills last.

1 seat remaining

8 total

Pouring master Lin Meizhen in stillness before the first infusion, hands resting on a clay pot

Teas in rotation

Years of practice

The Art of Rinsing

The first pour is never for drinking.

In gongfu cha, the first rinse wakes the leaf. It opens the tightly pressed cells, releases the dust of storage, and tells the tea you are paying attention. You pour it away. This is not waste — it is introduction.

At Steeping, we believe every guest deserves that same unhurried beginning. There is no rush to the second cup. The room is designed to resist it. The tables are too good for laptops. The light is too particular for phones.

We opened in 2021 with twelve seats and one oolong we loved. We still have twelve seats. The oolong has company now.