A Nice Cuppa

As a tea aficionado and frequent host of tea parties around New York City, I’m often asked how I find such great spots.  My methods of finding a new place for tea are simple — chance and word-of-mouth mostly.  Walking around the city certainly has its benefits!  I’ve identified some of my favorite spots by merely walking by the window of an obscure cafe and deciding to peek in.  To my great excitement, such curiosity has led me to find wonderful tea havens.

For those looking for a clear map to identifying a new place, I can recommend a great book:

A few years ago Elizabeth Knight released a wonderful book entitled Tea in the City: New York, it is filled with reviews and summaries of tea spots located in Manhattan and the boroughs.  Ms. Knight is incredibly knowledgeable and shares her wealth of information with her readers.  Her book is broken down by neighborhoods, such as Chinatown and the Lower East Side; Soho and NoLita; Greenwich Village; Chealsea and the Meat-Packing District, among others.  Interspersed between the neighborhood sections are informative pages on the various traditions of tea: Chinese, Indian, French and Russian.  The final pages of the book contain definitions of various teas and tea-time customs.  This little book has a cover price of $18.95 and is available through Amazon.com.