It seems like she is always sitting there, every time I stop by Kaleisia Tea Lounge. Laptop cracked open, stacks of papers, phone at the ready. I've never seen Kaleisia co-owner Kim Phan actually work with the stuff on her table, though. Whenever there are customers in the store, she is focused solely on their needs.
Kaleisia has modern coffee shop sensibilities: tile floors and white walls, sweeping modern fixtures and bistro tables, a couple of couches and free wi-fi. I always amble first to the wall of tea — a 6-foot section lined with four free-floating shelves covered in small stainless steel canisters. Each bears a tiny label printed with an unlikely name: Kyoto cherry rose, angel peach, strawberry tingle, lapsang souchong smoky. It's a great place to hunt for a new drag name.
The canisters are filled with loose tea and exist solely for smell sampling, so I twist off a lid and stick my nose in to vacuum the incredibly fragrant aroma that wafts out. Tea is a lot like wine: Each one is so individual, so multi-faceted, I could spend hours just picking out different subtle characteristics. Inevitably, though, once I hit my 10th canister, Phan speaks up and shocks me out of my olfactory reverie: "Can I help you pick something out?"
She doesn't mind me sniffing the merchandise — that's what it's here for — but she knows that she can help move me from smelling to tasting. With just a few questions, Phan has my tea preferences nailed and has begun brewing a mixture of rooibos chai (decaf and spicy) and black peach apricot (caffeinated and fruity). Sweetened with unprocessed cane sugar and fortified with a splash of skim milk, it's rich and complex and makes me wish there was a Kaleisia (instead of Seattle's coffee giant) on every corner.
But Kim Phan doesn't plan to expand Kaleisia into a chain. "Here, we focus on educating our customers; it's very personal," she says. More locations make it harder to guarantee the level of service Phan and business partner/cousin Lan Ha, who both came to the States from Vietnam as children, strive to provide. "If we open more locations, we need more Kim and Lan."
That personalized service is vital here in the United States, where no tea culture exists. In other countries, tea is used to relax and create a connection with visitors, a ritual that "turns guests into good friends, or family," says Phan. At my house, we hand out cans of Fresca in coolie cups emblazoned with the names of vacation destinations. Maybe I just don't want company.
We Americans are, at the core, coffee drinkers. We want our hot beverages to be black and simple and loaded with caffeine to fuel our jittery lives. Tea flows with serenity and transcendence, subtlety and restraint. For most of us, those feelings are so removed from our emotional repertoire that we need a guide.
Some national retailers have made inroads into the tea trade, most notably Teavana, which has an outpost in International Plaza. It's a bustling place, with several salespeople stocking shelves, brewing tea and pouring samples. During a recent visit, my few technical questions were briskly and politely answered and I was directed to one of their sample stations to try something that might suit my tastes. I liked it, but by the time I'd turned around, the salesperson was already on the other side of the store slicing open a box. Teavana is a tea place, but with a coffee attitude.
Part of Kaleisia's educational regimen involves once-a-month organized tea tastings and seminars. Last month, they had more than 120 people slurping up tea and knowledge on a Saturday afternoon. So many people, in fact, that they bought a second air conditioner just to keep up with the increased heat a mass of humanity brings with it.
You don't need to attend a seminar to absorb some tea-ducation. Within 10 minutes of one-on-one time, Phan has taught me that white tea has the same healthful powers of green tea, but with considerably less caffeine; that you can make your own decaf tea by steeping the leaves in hot water for 20-30 seconds, then discarding that liquid and brewing as normal; that black tea contains the most caffeine (although still only about half that of a cup a joe). I guess she has divined that I am addicted to the bitter drug.
Kaleisia packs loose in little vacu-pouches, two ounces at a time, enough to brew 20-25 cups (for about $6 per packet). Phan gets the tea for Kaleisia — largely free trade and organic — from several different distributors, frequently turning away product that doesn't meet her standards. "Even though we've only been open a few months, I've been drinking tea all my life," she says, and a 13-month tour of tea-growing regions has refined her knowledge. Next year, she plans to use the contacts she gathered during that trip to start importing tea directly, perhaps wholesaling some of it herself.
For peddling a product often considered "cultured," Kaleisia is in an unlikely location: a strip mall in a decidedly unglamorous part of town. Just up Fletcher from USF, the store may benefit from a college crowd willing to try anything for a bit of free wi-fi. Kaleisia serves vegan lunches, brought in from Bean Pot Café, which may help. They also offer "boba", or "bubble" tea, the trendy iced tea loaded with marble-sized tapioca pearls. Extra-large straws allow you to suck up the half-dissolved, gummy little spheres. It's surprisingly tasty.
When I ask Phan why she gave up a promising career in urban planning to open Kaleisia, she says "I cannot describe how passionate I am about tea." As I watch her talk to customers, identifying regulars by name and tea preference, or gently guiding newcomers into a brave new beverage world, I can see her passion rubbing off on everyone who walks through the door.
Brian Ries is a former restaurant general manager with an advanced diploma from the Court of Master Sommeliers. He can be reached at brian.ries@weeklyplanet.com. Planet food critics dine anonymously, and the paper pays for the meals. Restaurants chosen for review are not related to advertising.
This article appears in Aug 31 – Sep 6, 2005.