Best place for a cup of cha: Japan?

If you ask, "Tea or coffee?" I will usually take coffee... (double macchiato if available), but that's because I don't make it better at home. In the last while, I have discovered more and more of the pleasures of tea (divorced from any socio-cultural interest in the ceremonies of tea preparation, drinking rituals or artistic appreciation of its utensils). I have long loved the bitter taste of matcha, but in Korea, I discovered ginseng tea, honeyed jujube tea, pumpkin tea, cold persimmon and cinnamon tea. In China, I found jasmin tea to be a thousand times more fragrant and delicious than what passes for jasmin in Vancouver's Chinatown. In Taiwan, high mountain Oolong was fantastic... And in Vancouver, my friends all recommend Creamy Earl Grey from Kerrisdale's Secret Garden teahouse. (Although regarding Earl Grey and Jasmin, my favorite way to injest those flavors is through truffles from Hong Kong's hotel famous for British high tea, the Penninsula!

Anyway, just back from Paris, I have added a couple more tea tastes to my cupboard from Mariage Freres. Wow! The Mariage Frere is like a Parisian cross between high tea at the Penninsula and lunch at Ten Ren tea company's Cha for tea in Taipei! But if you want to live somewhere where you can easily stock both Ten Ren and Mariage Frere, you'd better move to Tokyo, Yokohama or Tokyo (or live in Paris and order your Oolong online as I doubt the Mariage Frere version is as good as the Taipei variety).