The Serene Cup

Fresh Cup Magazine

April 2006

Bruce Richardson, columnist

Four Fresh Faces on the New York Tea Scene

The New York City tea scene is fast-becoming the most innovative and eclectic of any world-class city. Manhattan Island, where Dutch traders first introduced the new world to tea in 1606, is in the midst of a major tea revival. World travelers will be surprised to know that there are greater varieties and better quality specialty teas being offered in New York today than in London!

At the 100-year-old St. Regis Hotel, tea sommelier and writer Elizabeth Knight is available to guide guests through the list of 20 teas and amuse them with tea history and etiquette. Knight, also the author of Tea in the City: New York has identified over 100 venues in the Manhattan area where tea can be enjoyed. “Just by hopping a subway, it is possible to visit a dozen foreign countries in an afternoon and take home their food, clothing and art!” she enthusiastically tells her audiences.

I love to visit tea rooms where the owner’s personality is evidenced in the décor, the food and, most importantly, the tea. The owner brings his or her own personal energy to these businesses. New York’s tea scene was infused with new life in the 90’s with such establishments as Miriam Novalle’s T Salon and Nicola Perry’s Tea and Sympathy. Both of these Lower Eastside favorites continue to attract loyal and enthusiastic clientele.

Meanwhile, a new tea attitude began brewing in lower Manhattan with the 2000 opening of the appropriately named TeaNY, a wee storefront operation on the Lower East Side. New Yorkers were served notice that tea is no longer the sole domain of Anglophiles, bookworms, and elderly ladies. It is hip and healthy.

With the turn of the 21st century came another band of tea room entrepreneurs who are spreading tea culture to a growing audience of informed and devoted tea drinkers. The common thread that runs through each of these new tea room owners is passion. They are committed evangelists for the ancient beverage and they want to change the world one cup at a time. Like many of those who came before them, several have given up the security of corporate America to live their dreams.

I want to introduce you to four young tea entrepreneurs who are putting a fresh face on tea in the city.

The Harlem Tea Room, Patrice Clayton

Passionate about tea with the belief that her neighborhood was ready to share that passion, Harlem natïve Patrice Clayton opened the Harlem Tea Room in 2004. The former financial marketing executive

transformed a newly-built retail space at the corner of Madison Avenue and 118th Street into a cozy room warmed by floor length burgundy curtains, a copper tea bar and paisley patterned upholstery. This area of Harlem is coming alive with new entrepreneurs and high profile tenants such as former president Bill Clinton.

The Harlem Tea Room hosts poetry readings, book signings, musical events, art shows and seminars. Twenty-one teas include herbals, organics and chai. A three course afternoon tea is offered every Saturday by reservation. Children’s tea parties and “tea parties to go” are available.

It’s a place where people can relax and feel comfortable outside their home,” Patrice says. The energetic owner has caught the attention of the Food Network’s Al Roker, Oprah’s O Magazine and The New York Times.

"I realized I wanted my own business," says Patrice. "I'd come from a corporate background, done my MBA in Ohio, and worked in marketing. I'd always had entrepreneurial urges. I knew I wanted to open a business in Harlem and I wanted to do something the neighborhood needed, but I knew it had to be something I was passionate about. I came up with the idea of a tea room. In 2003, I gave myself five years to make it happen, but when I returned from vacation in January 2004, I thought, where is my life going? I must do it now!"

Sympathy for the Kettle, Jodi Holiday

Sympathy for the Kettle Tea Room, New York City Jodi Holiday moved to the East Village after completing graduate school in Boston. Her first job was as editor for an engineering magazine. “I spent 60 hours each week in my publishing office cubicle fantasizing about opening a tea room,” she admitted. “I wanted to make tea colorful, fun, exciting and affordable.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have put the word “affordable” in her business plan because eight banks turned her down very quickly. A tea room conjured up a dowdy, grandmotherly image to the male loan officers she encountered. Even the Small Business Administration gave no support to her aspirations. After a year of planning and searching for support, her dream came to fruition.

The ninth bank Jodi approached realized she was determined. They lent her the money needed to take over a former Korean tea room in her neighborhood. It was a tiny step-down retail space on St. Mark’s Place. Jodi knew her model would work here because this area is becoming one of the city’s hippest shopping strips, populated by fashionable boutiques selling ethnic clothing, gifts and home furnishings. She named her dream business Sympathy for the Kettle, a riff on a Rolling Stones lyric. She welcomed her first customers in November 2003.

Her 30-and-under customers are devoted drinkers of green tea latte. She has moved them from drinking cappuccino and espresso to this delicious brew she makes every morning in a large container. Her extensive tea list includes traditional black teas as well as fruit infusions, flavored teas, green and white teas, pu-erh, maté and rooibos. Jody stocks organic and fair trade teas as much as possible. Each selection is stored in tin containers shelved behind the counter.

Jodi is working the same number of hours as when she worked in corporate America. The difference is now she is living her passion.

SalonTea at the City Club Hotel, Tracy Stern

As early as the 17th century, elegant women hosted salons where artists, aristocrats and intellectuals gathered to amuse themselves over tea. As an avid traveler and art history student, Tracy Stern visited elegant tea salons throughout Europe Tracy Stern, SalonTea and became fascinated with the history of tea. It was those experiences that inspired her collection of unique tea sets and a dream of having her own tea room someday. That dream became reality when she opened her intimate SalonTEA at the City Club Hotel on West 55th Street.

The tea room on the second floor mezzanine of this exclusive hotel seats only twelve in high back, upholstered chairs drawn around tables lit with flickering candles. Tracy named each of her estate tea blends after a character one might have met during the golden age of the salon: The Artist, Society Hostess, The Writer, Fashionable Dandy and The Musician. "I feel I have a tea that suits everyone's taste," says Tracy.

Her love and flair for cutting edge, creative entertaining transports her guests to different periods and places where no experience is ever the same. Her high energy and attention to detail has garnered reams of press and near-celebrity status as a tea artisan. Her customers often take tea home to recreate the experience Tracy has set before them.

Athelier Tea Workshop, Xavier de Leon

Who would have considered opening a tea bar at the entrance to one of lower Manhattan’s top designer stores?

Donna Karan (DKNY) knew a good pairing when she saw it and teamed with Xavier de Leon to launch the Athelier Tea Workshop, a colorful tea bar at the entrance of DKNY.

Xavier’s passion for tea was developed while growing up in Paraguay. They taught him the virtues of the hundreds of different herbs and flora in the rain forests of the region. His knowledge of tea and herbs was further enhanced through his travels and tea studies in Paris. Today he enthusiastically shares his knowledge with customers who sit enthralled as he blends a tea shake before them while sharing the health benefits of green teas or yerbe maté.

Xavier is an artist at heart. His herbal creations and colorful blends are a true reflection of his passion. His knowledge of his craft has gained him wide exposure. Rightly so. There are few places in North America where you can choose from 25 yerba matés as well as white, green and black teas, herbals, honey bush, rooibos and fruit tisanes.

Athelier’s success can be seen in the young crowd, tea in hand, that flows through the DKNY store. Xavier has brewed a healthy potion that is seducing a new generation of tea consumers. Beware Red-hatters, this is the new face of tea.

Sure, the opulent afternoon teas at hotels such as The St. Regis, The Peninsula, and The Waldorf-Astoria continue to draw the well-heeled and well-traveled. These grand dames will always offer a luxurious respite from a day’s shopping on Fifth Avenue. But, if tea’s allure is to reach the younger masses, it needs to widen its appeal. We need young tea evangelists such as these to spread the good news of tea!

Bruce Richardson is the owner of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas and the author several books, including The New Tea Companion. For more information on the New York tea scene, read his newest book TEA IN THE CITY: NEW YORK.

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