DAVIDsTEA: Montreal-based tea company
DAVIDsTEA opened its first two
US outposts last fall in Manhattan’s West Village and Upper East Side. Now, the tea retailer is extending its reach, having opened
a new shop in Chicago, with two more slated to open in Chi-town this fall and a
Boston outlet in the works. The brand’s
immense success of late is due largely to its fun and hip approach to gourmet loose-leaf teas. Creative flavors like
Organic Stormy Night, a chocolate- and cinnamon-infused black tea, are gorgeously packaged and are described with ample narrative detail, giving drinkers a sense for both flavor profile and, as importantly,
backstory.
Press Tea: Fans of the newly trending
dirty chai latte will be hard-pressed to make a case for the popular tea-espresso hybrid when sidling up to the counter at
Press Tea. The café, which opened this summer on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, doesn’t just specialize in tea—it excludes coffee from its menu altogether. The café’s biggest draw is its namesake specialized tea press, a shiny silver contraption that allows owners Chris Chang, Kenny Shyu, and Gary Ye to get creative with their tea blends. Now offering seasonal concoctions like pumpkin tea lattes and hot apple cider black tea, Press Tea may convert even the most devoted java-heads.
Luhse Tea: Mother-daughter duo Mindy Ferris and Brittney Wholihan launched
Luhse, a line of gourmet loose teas, after years of traveling the world as an army family thanks to Ferris’ husband’s military career. Having encountered a wide range of cultural tea traditions, Ferris and Wholihan wanted to introduce their favorite esoteric flavors to the masses. The brand’s catchphrase, “Get Luhse,” hints at a dual mission to deliver gourmet goods—tea bags a la Lipton are decidedly out—while making tea-drinking itself seem less stodgy. Blends feature sassy names like
Plum Crazy (Oolong with plum essence) and
Getting Lei’d (a pineapple-infused green), and a
recent rebranding suggests the noir imagery of the Prohibition era.
