Tea and Time in the International District: Panama Hotel and Kobo at Higo

My friend Clay was in town this weekend and we spent part of Saturday on a mini Fresh-Picked style jaunt as part of my quest to hunt down the 2009 Snow and Graham calendar.

According to their website, local retailer Kobo in the International District carries them. Since we were heading down to that general area for the Esquin wine tasting (which, unfortunately, we were too pokey to get to in time), we decided to swing by.

Photo from Panama Hotel website

I had to, of course, first make a stop at PFI because I am a moth to its tasty tasty flame, but after that we headed into the I.D. As I parked, I realized that Kobo is close to the Panama Hotel, so I first took Clay on a quick jog through the Panama Hotel Tea House.

In case you aren’t familiar with the story behind the hotel, there is some great info on their history on their website, but here’s the quick thumbnail.

The hotel was originally a “workingman’s hotel” in the Nihonmachi, or Japantown section of Seattle.

In April of 1942, when Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals were forced to abruptly leave their homes to go to internment camps, many families stored their belongings in the basement of the hotel, where they have remained since. Artist Jan Johnson bought the building in 1986, and she has kept the basement pretty much intact as an historical exhibit.

Photo from Panama Hotel WebsiteThis jumble of hastily stored belongings can be viewed through a plexiglass window in the floor of the Panama Hotel Tea House. Some artifacts are also kept in the cabinets near the front door.

It might seem incongruous to incorporate a very melancholy historical note into a Tea House, but somehow, with the simple décor, and black and white photos of the I.D. from earlier in the Twentieth Century, the overall feeling of the Tea House is more peacefully contemplative than maudlin.

There is a good selection of tea available. I am not a tea aficionado, but it gets great reviews on Yelp and Urbanspoon, some of which appear to be from actual tea folk. Coffee drinks as well, free WiFi and a good selection of traditional coffee shop pastries, in addition to many Japanese treats.

After that, we headed around the corner to Kobo at Higo. This store and art gallery space occupies the former Higo Variety Store

Okay, the shop’s inclusion on this Food Events site might seem tenuous at best but our visit was too lovely not to post about and just watch: I will pull off a stunning tying-it-all-together at the end of it. Hang on to your hat!

Part of the space is dedicated to exhibits of arts and crafts, and the rest to other items like books, cards, decorative goods, etc. (and, if you are so inclined, a few Japanese toy vending machines offering unusual capsule toys like busts of Beethoven or some kind of anatomical model).

So often you walk into a store offering cute items...and they are selling what every other store selling the Standard Cute Items ordered from the Standard Cute Item Catalog are selling. What I liked about Kobo is that it seems to clearly reflect the owner or buyer’s sensibility; it feels personal and specific.

I got my Snow and Graham calendar, and Clay picked up a beautiful Herman Yu calendar. To our surprise, the designer herself was standing right there at the counter, chatting with the owner. She was kind enough to sign Clay’s calendar, making it an even more special souvenir, and graciously gave me my choice of a greeting card (I picked the Garden Stones, to the right in the picture) as she was out of business cards. I love her aesthetic, clean and simple, yet full of life, not sterile. Check out her website in the link above for a peek at her stationery products and look for her stuff at Kobo.

Okay, so how am I going to successfully justify including this spot on a food-n-drink focused website? Check this out and marvel at my powers!

For one, until Dec 30, they have a display of the 4th Annual Simple Cup Invitational - here’s an article about the event from the Seattle PI - 300 designers take on that vessel. And people have been known to both eat AND drink from cups! So there you go! Connection: made!

Photo from www.WildFoodsCalendar.com

And I’ll give you another! The store is also selling the Wild Food Calendar from Christina Choi.

For those of you who frequent Seattle area farmers markets, Christina is the co-founder of Foraged and Found Edibles, a favorite source for mushrooms and other wild foods. The calendar includes “14 delicious recipes and 13 original illustrations, [and] is printed on recycled paper with soy based inks using a two-color offset process. The monthly date squares feature little tidbits about ingredients and foraging habitat. The back pages include additional information about the recipes and specific mushroom cleaning tips.”

So if you are a Found and Foraged fan, you can pick one up at Kobo at Higo, and take it over to the Panama Hotel Tea Room to peruse whilst sipping your tea. (Kobo also has their original location in Capitol Hill.)

After that, we headed on home after a quick stop at Uwajimaya for some scallops for dinner. We stood in the checkout line behind one lone lanky gentleman buying only a giant durian. I could not help but be curious about what adventure he had in store for his Saturday evening.