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I don’t like New York City. Never have. The burg just vibrates at the wrong frequency for me. Too many folk moving too fast to too many places. Or something. I can stand about a weekend’s worth of NYC every couple of years, then I high myself back to my Boston suburb and take deep cleansing breaths.
But last weekend, I was on a mission. I went to New York for a pot of tea. Two pots actually.
Last Saturday, my wife and I were in the city for exactly seven hours, during which time we met up with our son and niece, who came in from Philadelphia; had a catch-up lunch with them; the three of them went to see Hamilton; I went to explore tea houses; and we dropped them off at Penn Station before we caught the Go Bus back home. A worthwhile whirlwind.
My first stop was at Té Company, a charming place a block from Christopher Street in the West Village. The place is tiny, minute even. The serving area can’t be larger than 10’ x 14’ and seats 14 people. The server asked if I’d be willing to share a table once a chair was available and asked again once I was seated if I’d mind sharing should the need arise. Alas, it didn’t – I would have loved to talk tea with a stranger.
Té Company specializes in Taiwanese oolongs, though they have a few other styles too. After some dithering, I opted for the Jade Rouge, which comes from Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan. It was a perfect exemplar of the style, full of cinnamon and camphor, with a honey finish. They serve it properly, with a sharing pitcher and a thimble size cup. For each tea order, they gladly refill the steeping vessel so you can enjoy the different flavors as the leaves unfold and release more of their hidden flavors and aromatics. I can’t wait to try the Oriental Green that I brought home. Té Company has a small browsing library and I found a couple of books that I’ll need to add to my collection: The Soul & Spirit of Tea, and The Meaning of Tea, which accompanies a documentary of the same name.
I could have happily stayed there all day, but wanted to make the most of my limited time, so off I went to Cha-an Teahouse, about 15 minutes away in the NYU neighborhood, tucked away on the second floor of a side street (I had to go around the block to get there because there was, no joke, a fire being put out three doors over from Cha-an. When I said to the guy at the door that I wasn’t sure they’d be open given what was going on, he just shrugged in blasé NY style and said, “We’re open, it’s just a little smoky.”) Inside, there were a few Westerners in sight, but the ambient language was Japanese, including the orders shouted into the kitchen that sounded like the Japanese version of short order orders. The Chiran Sencha I quaffed was incredible: fresh, lightly vegetal, clean as an ocean breeze. A bit peckish by now, I paired it with a “sakura drop,” without knowing exactly what that is. What emerged looked like a gigantic, perfectly transparent dewdrop with delicate flowers embedded. The texture was a slightly thicker version of the jello we all remember from childhood and the flavor was somewhat nondescript until I poured a bit of the accompanying brown sugar syrup onto it. Then the whole thing came alive to fill my palate with a perfect balance of texture, smoky, and sweet.
If the desserts were that good, I can only imagine what the rest of the food is like, but Hamilton was entering its final scenes and it was time for me to head back uptown, happily tea drunk and enjoying a perfect spring day. The transition from quiet teahouse to the heart of Times Square was jarring and reminded me of all the reasons I don’t spend time in the city, but my whole family was flying high from our varied adventures in NYC. In all, we achieved satisfaction, family time, escape, and balance. Seven hours well spent.
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On top of being one of my best chums, Hillel is an International Tea Masters Association-certified tea sommelier and the driving force of Tea Oasis, a traveling tea tasting company, dedicated to sharing the wonder, joy and magnificent tastes of tea.
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