Tea Places: 29B Teahouse

Last year I wrote about Tea Dealers and their location inside of the Canal Street Market. They’ve since moved again and I think the latest incarnation is the most exciting one yet.

Now you can sit down to drink their teas as well as nibble on some pretty incredible food. The space is a perfect fusion of a traditional teahouse and modern sensibility.

Cast iron tetsubins sat on sleek black induction burners and beautifully arranged flowers were tastefully placed throughout.

My First Visit

My first visit was a casual drop in. I happened to be in the area for another event. The menu is a bit limited but offers interesting options, including tea cocktails and food pairings. I opted for a yabukita kabuse sencha and the king salmon sashimi. The tea was incredible (so much umami!) but the salmon was definitely the star of the show. It was among some of the best sashimi I’ve ever had. The freshly grated wasabi really knocked my socks off.

The attention to detail and focus on service are really what makes visiting this teahouse an experience. It’s a destination, both for the tea and culinary delights. They collaborate with Michelin Star chefs regularly to host tea pairing dinners. I also really love that they are open relatively late in the evening. Sometimes I’d much rather get tea with friends than cocktails but at this place, we can do both!

Book Signing

My second visit was for a very special occasion. 29B Teahouse hosted a tea tasting and book signing with Tony Gebely of World of Tea. Stefen began the event by sharing his admiration for Tea: A User’s Guide, a sentiment that I can definitely echo. It is essential reading for anyone interested in tea. My copy is used as reference material on a regular basis, especially when I am writing blog posts. Spring for a physical copy rather than the Kindle edition if you don’t already own one. The carefully documented color photographs are incredibly useful.

One of my favorite things about attending tea events is getting to connect with other people who are just as crazy about tea as I am. I was happy to see that my seat was reserved next to Jee from Oh, How Civilized. I connected with a few other great people that day as well. Group tastings are always fascinating for me because tea is so subjective. We all drank the same teas at the same time but the tastes and aromas that everyone experienced varied quite a bit.

Just one of the teas we tasted came from the teahouse’s collection, a South Korean sejak. The rest were teas from Tony’s personal treasure trove. There was a dizzying array of teas, many of which I had only heard about before (and even a few that I hadn’t). Funky heicha, a copycat sheng from Sri Lanka, and Fujian black tea were all on the bill. Tony shared textbook facts about each of them with us but also spiced things up with anecdotes from his tea adventures around the world. Brewing for that many people is always nerve-wracking. Stacking infusions from multiple gaiwans helped him get enough brewed for everyone quickly

I’m not usually one for pairing food with my tea. I’m more likely to drink lots of tea and forego eating altogether when left to my own devices. That being said, I was definitely intrigued by the plates of tiny sweets that 26B Teahouse laid out for us. 

Stefen explained that each item was designed to emphasize a specific quality of the tea. There was very dark chocolate to help us to pick up the tannins in tea, black sugar to bring out the sweetness, and candied citrus to highlight astringency.

This is definitely something I’d like to experiment with more in the future. I’m always looking for ways to train and expand my palate and it would make a pretty interesting blog post.

I left the tasting certifiably tea drunk, so much so that I needed to go grab a slice of pizza. Once my stomach had settled I started walking to the train but of course, I couldn’t resist one last tea stop. Setsugekka is a matcha shop that was recently opened by tea master Souheki Mori.

Thank you to 29B Teahouse and Tony for a wonderful event! I’m so glad that I was able to attend.