a Viennese cafe, wilted sunflowers, the intersection of tomatoes and wreaths

I found myself uptown yesterday and got to spend some time in one of my favorite places in New York, the Neue Gallery. I admittedly ordered coffee rather than tea at Cafe Sabarsky - the museum cafe is after all modelled after a Viennese coffee house and to be honest, I very rarely order tea out because I make so much tea at home. Exceptions are if I’m going to a beautiful tea room, traveling, ordering a Lipton black tea with a baked potato at the diner, or if the moment is right. The moment at Cafe Sabarsky is right for coffee. I do also order tea out at places that serve Masha Tea partially because I’m always so interested in how others make and serve the same tea that I myself make every day. Every once in a while, I’ll be at a friend’s house and they want tea but they want me to make it, nervous that they’ll make it wrong or that I somehow know what I’m doing more than they do. And that’s always the last way that I want to make somebody feel. I think that the beauty in the style of tea making that I love is that it doesn’t need to be right, it all comes down to what you like to drink, and to the experience of sharing or making tea. Sometimes a pot of licorice tea that you left steeping 15 minutes ago and forgot about can be just what you need, or the green tea whose color immediately amazed you forced you to pour it too early. That’s all perfect and okay and maybe you like it more that way or now know for next time your preference.

Below are some pieces that I loved at the Neue gallery yesterday.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)
Tightrope Walk, 1908-10

Egon Schiele
(1890-1918)
Wilted Sunflowers (Autumn Sun II), 1914

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
Forester’s House in Weissenbach II (Garden), 1914

Dagobert Peche (1887–1923)
Coffee and tea service, 1922-23

A couple of other things to note are that we are sold out of mint, lemon balm, and earl grey tea tins, so our tea bag sets through January are only green + black! Thank you for your enthusiasm about the tins. You can pre-order the sets, gift gift cards for them (or if the pre-orders are gifts I’m happy to mail envelopes with little notes to your loved ones saying they are coming) just let me know what you would like and need :)

Our green tea, since the Wirecutter feature, has also been selling really fast and the next batch is a held up in customs. We should have that out to you next week + definitely in time for holiday. I’m actually really glad that our green tea is having its moment — I source a really beautiful organic kukicha as our green from a small family farm in Shizuoka, Japan. Often times when you get a Japanese green, it’s a sencha, but I’ve always really enjoyed the flavor of kukicha — it’s almost a little bit nuttier — because it has the stems left on, not only the leaves. Our hojicha is also made from that green and So good. The Love Tea was also featured in that Wirecutter article and the team that wild-harvests cedar, juniper, and roses for us is sending over a fresh harvest of wild cedar from Washington for the next batch.

Feel free to reach out directly if you need help with tea-time holiday gifting <3

As for the HEALTHY HABITS portion of this newsletter, the vibe at the Union Square market this week was the intersection of tomatoes and wreaths. I’m still pleasantly surprised every single week upon continuing to see tomatoes at the market.