Fresh Cup Magazine November 2005 Bruce Richardson, columnist This Is Not Your Grandmother's Tea Room No matter where I go across America, someone in the audience will say to me, “I’ve always dreamed of opening a tea room.”
Their wistful vision is often colored in various shades of pinks and reds, has something to do with ladies in hats and furs, and is fed by an unending supply of nostalgic naiveté.
America’s recent love affair with tea rooms has for 20 years centered on a feminine Victorian concept having to do with English tea sandwiches accompanied by black and flavored teas served in cozied pots.
There are countless such tea rooms across the United States and Canada keeping British ritual and the spirit of Jane Austen alive. The energetic owners of these tea rooms have fueled America’s return to tea, and were about the only show in town until we turned the corner into the 21st century.
But, the tea landscape has changed dramatically over the past five years and it continues to evolve as the spa industry marries into tea’s healthiness, coffee shops jump on the tea express, and Asian design and spirituality becomes more main stream. Take note, tea is putting on a new hat and a fresh face across the country. In case you haven’t been paying attention, tea rooms are changing. The next one you enter may not be your grandmother’s tea room.
These evolving trends were evident at the recent NASCORE trade show in Denver, Colorado. I spoke with countless current and future coffee shop proprietors who are eager to incorporate the tea culture into their businesses. They want someone to take them by the hand and lead them gently, yet quickly, into the business of serving gourmet teas. With an open mind, let’s take a look at the fresh new faces of tea in America.
San Francisco, California
There is a whiff of the exotic when you enter the Samovar Tea Lounge. If your image of an ideal tea room is a pink cottage filled with frilly Victorian tables and chintz teapots, you are in for a surprise. This is definitely is not your grandmother’s tea room.
Strategically located on a street corner between the Mission and Castro districts, Samovar is a prime example of how tea has taken on a new mission in America.
You won’t find ladies in hats drinking raspberry tea and eating crustless finger sandwiches here. What you will find is a mix of young professionals, college students and neighborhood regulars who drop by daily to enjoy a pot of tea and a bento box while conversing with friends. Customers often linger over their pot of keemun for hours as the morning sunshine streams through the wall of windows and onto their backs.
The emphasis here is on tea - serious tea. This is one of the few tea venues west of Hong Kong where you find nine pu-erhs on the menu, each showing the year of vintage. Green, oolong and herbal teas are their most popular choices. Sure, black teas are included but customers are more into orange-ginger than Earl Grey. Asian teapots and tea bowls are used to brew the leaves while a 400-year-old statue of Bodhisattva Kuan Yin presides over the pan-Asian tea celebration.
The mission of Samovar Tea Lounge is to bring cultures together into a new concept that captures the essence of international tea traditions in a contemporary way. The owners believe that as more people experience the tea lifestyle, the world will become a better place. Here, the 5000 year tradition of tea has never been fresher.
Boulder, Colorado The convivial custom of taking tea is alive and well in Boulder, Colorado. The citizens of this Rocky Mountain town and their sister city Dushanbe, Tajikistan have taken the art and camaraderie of tea to its highest level. In 1987, Dushanbe’s Mayor presented the city with a teahouse to celebrate the establishment of sister city ties. Using skills handed down from generation to generation, more than 40 artisans in several cities of Tajikistan created the decorative elements for the teahouse, including its hand-carved and hand-painted ceiling, tables, stools, columns, and exterior ceramic panels. The artisans who painted it have written their names on a green painted area above the entry to the kitchen. A message carved into the ceiling reads "artisans of ancient Khojand whose works are magical." The whole masterpiece was disassembled and shipped to Boulder where it was reconstructed with eyesight of the university. A magical place it is! The aroma of curry and other exotic spices greets guests as they enter. One corner has a low table surrounded by pillows where guests are invited to recline for their tea ~ as in a Bedouin tent. The Teahouse offers an eclectic mix of teas, and dishes from around the world with an emphasis on traditional Tajik and Persian entrees.
The thirst for tea has spilled over into The Tea Spot, Boulder’s newest tea shop that opened two years ago just a couple of blocks from Dushanbe. They offer over one hundred gourmet teas with names like Boulder Blues, Mango Tango and Meditative Mind.
Such zen-like tea names are commonplace in this new-age university town that is also home to one of America’s herb-tea giants, Celestial Seasons. That plant is located on the edge of town on Sleepy-Time Lane.
New York, New York The newly-expanded Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan opened earlier this year to rave revues for its generous use of space and sensitive attention to the needs of museum patrons. Evidence of the thoughtful attention to detail can be found in the tea service offered in the new Terrace 5 café/tea room. Guests can indulge in mouthwatering desserts, artisanal chocolates, a selection of savory bites, and exquisite teas brewed in beautiful cast iron tea pots. Contemporary and sophisticated, the café enjoys a spectacular fifth-floor view of The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden and the city. On a warm day, tea may be taken on the terrace. It’s a great location to feed the body and soul.
Lower Manhattan is the home of two of New York’s hippest tea spots. The dkny store in Soho has added a tea bar called Athelier. Customers who spend hundreds of dollars for the latest jeans or jacket can relax over a soothing cup of tea or a yerba mate shake.
Meanwhile, over in west SOHO, the popular musician Moby is in his fourth year of operating a wee tea room that is a magnet for fans of his music. His basement-level, vegan-inspired café/tea room is called TEANY; which it is. It is so small that he recently added a walk-up window to dispense tea to the daily customers who count on his caffeine to get them to the office on time, and awake. The most popular dessert is the vegan chocolate peanut-butter bomb. That certainly is not an item to be found in your grandmother’s tea room.
The extensive Teany tea list is influenced by herbs and health. His success with developing a young, healthy tea audience has spawned a line of ready-to-drink teas that are found nationwide.
 Brooklyn, New York
Entering The Tea Lounge reminds me of walking into my 21-year-old son’s dorm room. It’s a mismatched collection of Goodwill couches and chairs arranged in convivial groupings placed around the spacious interior of a former garage. It is such a relaxed atmosphere that I saw two regulars catching a mid-afternoon nap when I visited. (Maybe they had been drinking a few of the 22 beers on tap rather than the 70 teas offered.)
This is the neighborhood gathering place for 20 to 30-year-olds. It has been written up by a dozen New York publications and featured on The Food Network.
As expected in this tea/coffee shop atmosphere, there are the usual college students lost in their laptops and book readers who like to nurse their pot of chamomile for a couple of hours. The menu and daily tea drink specials are written in colored chalk on a blackboard behind the tea bar.
But the most unusual draw is the new mother’s support group that meets here regularly over a cup of tea. I could hardly get through the door for fear of tripping over a baby stroller. This is not only the local tea room, it has become the living room and nursery for this area of Brooklyn.
Washington, DC Michelle Brown and Linda Orr opened the first Teaism in 1996 in Dupont Circle, yards away from the shiny new Starbucks. They took their name, and inspiration, from the classic Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakua. As eager students of tea, they were put off by what they perceived as “the corruption of tea by those who favored style above substance, and the use of teabags in America.” Their business began a zealous mission to share their discovery of tea’s richness and complexity. They immediately drew a thirsty crowd from the nearby universities, offices and embassies.
Hard work and passion paid off. One tea house became two tea houses, and soon there was a third within sight of the White House. Nine years later, they are the reigning tea masters of Washington, presiding over an empire of three popular Asian-influenced tea rooms and a tea retail shop. They are a major source for quality loose tea and tea knowledge in the Washington area. Plus, their ginger scones are world-famous are being discovered by the Food Network.
A new thirst for tea knowledge I remember speaking at my first tea seminar in 1994. John Harney annually hosted several weekends of education and tastings for fledgling students of tea in Sudbury, Connecticut. We were all tea novices then. After a long absence, tea was just making its way back into the hotels across the country and tea rooms were beginning to appear with real loose teas on their menus. There were few American books written on the subject, white tea was black tea with milk, and English tea rooms were the role model we all wanted to emulate.
That scenario has changed dramatically in just ten years, thanks in great part to the efforts of many in the tea industry to spread the knowledge of tea. There are now several tea schools, a recognized tea certification program, World Tea Expo, three glossy tea magazines and a host of tea associations spread across America.
Tea room owners want to know more about their product. Their customers are no longer satisfied with an offering of common Earl Grey or English Breakfast. Gourmet tea sales in the United States have quadrupled over the past decade.
Americans are thirsty for tea knowledge. They want to drink it, study it, talk about it and immerse themselves in the tea lifestyle. This new consumer awareness has sparked a wave of tea education that has found its way into every corner of the national gourmet market. New tea room owners realize the importance of putting tea at the center of their tea business.
When it comes to style, tea venues are no longer one size fits all. Tea rooms in the Victorian tradition will not attract the twenty year-olds that are looking for a healthy alternative to the bar scene. Many of the business examples listed in this column owe their success to the fact that they have chosen to pull the best from several tea traditions, rather than just one.
Victorian, Asian or new-age, all successful tea businesses have a common thread: they created a community centered around a good cup of tea, where all people feel accepted and comforted. Surely, that will make any grandmother happy!
Bruce Richardson is the owner of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas and the author of such books as The Great Tea Rooms of Britain and The New Tea Companion. This article and photographs are copyrighted materials. They may not be used in any form, electronically or in print, without the written consent of the publisher, Fresh Cup magazine. | 
