Tea-making is a ritual that, like the drink itself, warms the heart somehow.

Tea is also a sort of spiritual refreshment, an elixir of clarity and wakeful tranquility. Respectfully preparing tea and partaking of it mindfully create heart-to-heart conviviality, a way to go beyond this world and enter a realm apart. No pleasure is simpler, no luxury cheaper, no consciousness-altering agent more benign.

No pleasure is simpler, no luxury cheaper, no consciousness-altering substance more benign.

Tea is quiet and it takes a quiet palate to appreciate something that calls so little attention to itself.

America's new tea lovers are the people who have forced the tea trade to wake up. Elsewhere, tea has meant a certain way, a certain tradition, for centuries, but this is America! The American tea lover is heir to all the world's tea drinking traditions, from Japanese tea ceremonies to Russian samovars to English scones in the afternoon. India chai, China green, you name it and we can claim it and make it ours. And that's just what we are doing. In this respect, ours is the most innovative and exciting tea scene anywhere.

Tea-making is a ritual that, like the drink itself, warms the heart somehow.

Tea is quiet and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty.