02 May 2006

Death of a Tearoom

I happened to be on Chambers Street this morning, so I checked to see how Tea Time was doing. Since I'm rarely in the City Hall area long enough to stop for tea, it's been a long time since I'd been there. So I was rather dismayed to find that in its place was a Blue Spoon Coffee Co.! I suppose I'm happy for whatever entrepreneur is having a go at a beverage business. It just seems to add insult to injury to supplant a teashop in favor of a coffee company! Now the tea lovers of that neighborhood will have to hike into Chinatown for a decent cup of tea. (If readers know of other places in the area, feel free to comment.)

This illustrates the sad state of affairs for the tea lovers in New York. When Tealuxe opened in Midtown, I was eager to give it a shot - but I never made it there before it closed. Tea Time would have been out of my radar completely if Marie had not informed me of its existence a couple of years back. She was going to school downtown and liked to check out new places between classes. When I first visited Tea Time I liked the place - kind of small, and even smaller on my return visit, but just the right size for a busy area like that. I was slightly put off by the unreasonable prices of their retail loose tea. I remember thinking: "that's uncalled for!" Maybe the owners were too greedy for their own good: I don't know, and probably never shall.

Hope the Tavalons and Communiteas of this world can enjoy a longer life.

2 comments:

k said...

i always passed by that place and the one time i decided i would go in (in my senior year when i was aiming to visit all the little cafe's and restaurants since I knew I wouldn't have a second chance) bam, it was closed. sad huh.

Marie said...

The people there were nice. Too bad it's gone!