Tea for Me

The tasting room at Harney & Sons

I consider tea coffee's commonlaw spouse, consummated by menu marriage anywhere warm beverages and pastries are served.  Markedly different, yet bonded by a common set of values: they're both best warm and pair equally well with Pepperidge Farm products or streusel muffins.

In coincidental homage to today's Tea Party debate, I seized this sunny 75-degree day to trek my northern escape route to tranquility for a day jaunt to Millerton, New York, home to Harney & Sons Tea Company.  For those unfamiliar, the work of master tea blender Michael Harney is served in some of the world's finest dining and hospitality venues, and is the exclusive tea offering by both Four Seasons Hotels and all Barnes & Noble in-store cafes.

Millerton, a town of roughly 1,000 residents (on a weekend) two hours north of Manhattan, blends bohemian bliss, rural ruggedness and big city chic—something a Bay Area boy can appreciate anyday, but hardly the place you'd expect to find the headquarters of possibly the world's most prominent tea blenders.  But the factory and tasting room are here, as is the company store and small sit-down café with table service overlooking the busy bike trail built on the old New York & Harlem Railroad. The entire operation is as unassuming and understately elegant as the town of two blocks itself.  While the factory, located along Route 22 on the outskirts of town, isn't open to the public, the latter three facilities are conjoined in the heart of the village.

My personal cup of tea (come on, you saw that one coming) is the tasting room, a veritable cornucopia of loose leaf blends from floor to ceiling where friendly staffers steep free samplings to assist in almost always challenging selections.  Each sachet is a flavorgasm to give your tea tongue pleasures it has never known.  Today, I scored some of my usual favorite, Tropical Green (a pineapple-infused take on the traditional Asian base), and season appropriately, African Autumn (a cranberry-orange rooibos blend).  And for my friends and relatives in the kosher nostra, you won't have to give either up for passover either.

Despite their impressive presence in Millerton, the company officially calls neighboring Salisbury, Connecticut home and recently opened its flagship store in SoHo.

Millerton is also home to Irving Farm Coffee Company, the regionally revered farm-based roasting outfit spawned from 71 Irving Place in Manhattan.  That's it's own entry for another day, but after all this talk about teas, I'll tease you with this food porn of the espresso chocolate chip crumb cake I scored this same day.  Om nom nom.

Essential knowledge at Oblong Books

This postage stamp-sized village, ranked among the 10 Coolest Small Towns in America by Frommer's Budget Travel, has other draws too.  My inner bookworm has always been down with Oblong Books & Music, a bi-locational bastion of the classic neighborhood bookseller (the other being in Rhinebeck) many hope the demise of Borders will bring back.  Aside from the awesome selection of local and special interest titles, the coolest part is the shape of the store itself: not its namesake one, but an irregular two-story "L" snaking two blocks.  The whole town is also close enough to hock a loogie into Connecticut—and you drive a few more miles north to the Massachusetts border and strike a Twister-esque pose, you can be in all three states simultaneously.  Cool beans.

There's also the Oakhurst Diner, a postcard perfect 1930s greasy spoon recently rebirthed with a farm-to-table twist (and known to be frequented by Law & Order's Chris Noth).  Far from the dingy dinette it used to be, the new menu balances classic fare with organic options and emphasizes its almost entirely locally-sourced ingredients.  And would you believe it: the new ownership, which oversaw the transformation, includes a Harney.

Food for thought: coffee beans only grow south of the equator, yet tea is most closely associated with the jolly old island nation with the fewest sunny days and palest people on the planet. (I can say that remorselessly, because I'm one of them).  Cheerio!