Tea Cellar

Glaze: Black with Blue

Brief Bio

The Tea Cellar opened its doors on November 3rd, 2016, in an actual cellar.  The walls were made of original-to-the-building limestone and the floors were concrete.  Instead of focusing on what some might consider a “negative location,” we decided to turn it into an experience and our tag line was “an underground tea experience.”  And it was. And people loved it.  And we were thrilled that they did.

Loose leaf tea is making a resurgence and no where in our area was anyone selling it or serving it.  So we decided to offer it ourselves.  And within the first quarter of business, we knew it was a much-needed addition to our downtown and area.

We have since branched out into a few grocery stores, convenience stores, and, of all things, coffee shops.  Coffee shops, as a rule, don’t serve excellent tea and so we are partnering with several and coming alongside them to help them in the process.  We laughingly admit that we are a “bag free zone.”  When a coffee shop slips a tea bag in a cup of hot water and slides it across the counter—we smile—because a new potential customer for us is borne!  Lol!  (Sounds snobbish, but when folks compare the taste of loose leaf tea to a tea bag, they’ll never go back!)

We moved into a 3,000 sq. ft. location in January, tripling our space.  We have natural light coming in, but we still maintain a “cellar feel.”  At least that’s the goal.

How We Use Our Grey Fox Mugs

The Tea Cellar uses their mugs in their shop for their nearly 70 varieties of tea—in categories of white, green, oolong, black, herbal, and pu-erh.  The experience consists of ordering a “pot for one” or a “pot for two” of the tea of your choice.  A strainer is used along with a timer to determine when steeping time is complete. Sounds like quite a lovely experience!