by Phoebe Cheong and Jude Andam, friends who live on opposite coasts, have recently started a tradition every time they see each other.
They have tea.
On a recent afternoon, Andam, a makeup artist from Los Angeles, joined Cheong, a commercial photographer, at the Lady Mendl Tea Room, which occupies the parlor floor of a Georgian house in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park neighborhood.
The two friends may have met for coffee or lunch, but they prefer the more formal tea experience.
“Coffee shops are casual,” Andam, 42, said. “You walk in there in your workout clothes or whatever. This is more of a special occasion.”
Ms. Cheong, 31, highlighted Lady Mendl’s maximalist decor, which includes Victorian fringed lampshades and gold leaf moldings. She also appreciated how the waiter announced that the topping on her scones was Devonshire cream.
“There’s mystery here, there’s storytelling,” Ms. Cheong said.
The elaborate afternoon tea service is a major attraction at more than a dozen locations in New York and Los Angeles. In Brooklyn high low, which has two locations near Prospect Park, costs $48 for the “classic” prix fixe tea service, which lasts 75 minutes. In Rose country house In Pasadena, California, a man in a tuxedo serves cucumber sandwiches and sticky toffee pudding. All three New York locations of Alice’s cup of tea have an “Alice in Wonderland” theme.
It is a curious fact that, in a decidedly uncivilized age, when people have become accustomed to arguing with strangers on social media and wearing sweatshirts on the plane, this elevated ritual has returned.
A new service in New York, Tea in the city, offers afternoon tea aboard a pink and white double-decker bus for those who want to take in the views while sipping an organic Earl Gray with lavender. The interior of the bus has soft pink benches instead of the seats found on a Greyhound.
This mobile lounge joins the traditional ones known for their elaborate tea service: a group of establishments that includes The Beverly Hills Peninsula, west london, hollywood and Plaza Hotel. The Plaza’s Palm Court looks much like the tea rooms of the 1920s, when The tables were divided by large palm trees, creating spaces within a room where guests can share their most intimate thoughts.
Bruce Richardson, the master blender of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas in Danville, Ky., and co-author of “A social history of tea“ He has been following the tea scene for about 30 years.
“I was in London last month,” Richardson said. “Wow, all hotels are having afternoon tea again, even more than 20 years ago. “There is a real resurgence of customers looking for that tea time to sit down.”
Richardson, 70, presented a theory about why afternoon tea, which became established as a tradition among the English nobility in the 1840s, it has persevered into the modern world. “In the ritual of making tea,” he said, “we rediscover our humanity, which has been obscured in the midst of a life that often moves too fast and is filled with too many things.”
Honey Moon Udarbe, owner of Brooklyn high lowShe said she used to drink tea alone as a kind of escape, and then with her daughters and friends, before opening her first salon in the Prospect Heights neighborhood in 2020.
Business has been so good that Ms. Udarbe, 47, recently saw fit to open a second teahouse 12 blocks from the original location. The new parlor, called Brooklyn High Low, the Parlor, can be found on the ground floor of a brownstone in Park Slope. She calls it “underground chatter” because she doesn’t advertise.
“I like this nostalgic moment of unplugging, sitting and chatting with people,” Udarbe said. He went on to say that a tea room has a lot in common with the corner bar, it just manages to foster a sense of camaraderie “without alcohol.”
Mary Fry opened Rose Tree Cottage, a tea house in Southern California, 50 years ago with her British husband, Edward. They created a time warp atmosphere not only by having Edward dress in a tuxedo and tails whenever he served customers, but also by making sure digital devices had no place on the table.
“Let me tell you, we made them turn off their phones,” Ms. Fry said. “You can’t be watching the Dodgers game and drinking tea. “It’s a time to calm down and enjoy conversation with family and friends and get back to where your brain should be.”
Maybe that’s why your salon has been so crowded lately and why you’ve noticed a lot of guests in their twenties and thirties. They arrive with elegant hats and fascinators: the formal fascinators. popularized by Kate Middleton. In its gift shop, Rose Tree Cottage sells a variety of elaborate hats and fascinators in pink, yellow, green and blue, along with jackets from British clothing manufacturer Barbour.
“My husband called it a sanctuary,” Fry said. “It’s a sanctuary in a crazy, crazy world that’s happening right now. “People want to escape with something traditional.”
In another interview, Udarbe made much the same point.
“Actually,” he said, “the basis of afternoon tea is time. It’s escaping from the iPhone, the subway, your job or whatever makes you lose control. A lady came to me and told me that it really is self-care.”
Proponents of this trend point out that a teahouse is very different from a cafe or restaurant, where one might be assaulted by the clatter of cutlery or pop music blaring from overhead speakers.
“Someone has taken the time to make this an environment conducive to conversations and beautiful memories,” said Richardson, the tea expert. “It could be like entering a cathedral. “There’s just a presence you feel there.”
In Floating Mountain Tea House On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the tea ceremony has a meditative aspect influenced by Chinese and Japanese tea culture. Guests are asked to remove their shoes upon entering the sparsely furnished room, where they can choose from 67 teas sourced from China. A special service, on Saturdays and Sundays, consists of sitting on the floor and drinking tea in silence.
“Customers come here out of curiosity and experience something they have never experienced before,” said Elina Medvedeva, the owner. “The energy is so serene.”
No food served. The idea is spiritual food. “The space I provide allows you to connect with yourself,” said Ms. Medvedeva, 48.
Though tranquil in its own way, Lady Mendl’s, with its upholstered parlor furniture, upright piano and portrait of Queen Elizabeth, evokes a different mood. The tea service, at $78 per person, begins with a selection of teas, followed by refreshments, including sandwiches and scones. The hall fairly ensures an atmosphere conducive to mature discourse through a policy prohibiting entry to children under 12 years of age.
While social media channels have been abuzz with discussions of wars and upcoming elections lately, a major debate in the Manhattan living room on a recent afternoon was the age-old question of what to put on the bun first: clotted cream or jam. At Lady Mendl’s it is recommended to put the cream first.
At a table in the back, two women were celebrating their pregnancies. Ms. Cheong and Ms. Andam, sitting near the piano, lingered over cups of Wonderland Rooibos, a variety of tea with hints of chocolate. They talked until four in the afternoon, closing time. No staff member pressured them to leave.
“In a coffee shop, everyone is working,” Andam said as she and her friend walked out of the quiet house and into the noise of New York. “When does anyone take the time to do this?”
