Customers Take Tea, Time at Brattle Street Bar

Stephanie L. Smith '98 has been a Tealuxe regular since the Brattle Street teabar first opened its doors in December of 1996.

Last Saturday evening, Smith was at Tealuxe pondering her Japanese history paper and sipping her Gyokuro Japanese green tea.

Pointing to the store's antique typewriter she remarked, "I wrote my Let's Go application on it last spring."

But nowadays Smith is finding a lot of company--a trend that could bring her typing days to an end. The slow pace of tea-sipping academics is running into conflict with the financial demands of a growing business.

"We love our students, but it's a fine line to walk between people staying here and our conducting business," the teabar's manager, Sean Kenneally said, pointing to the room packed with tea-lovers.

"It's tricky...we want everyone to feel welcome but we can't have people camping out here and doing their homework," he added, explaining that Tealuxe only has ten tables and no bathroom.

Tealuxe is part student hangout, part intellectual den and part tourist stop. A mixture of quirkiness and stylishness, there is nostalgia in the 20s and 30s jazz music wafting in the air, accompanying the retro first-half-of the 20th century decor.

Saturday evening, as Smith was deep in the world of tenth-century Japan, the line was stretched several people long, and seating was impossible to find.

Because of nights like Saturday, Tealuxe has begun to tighten up its seating policy. Although the teatenders welcome customers to stay when there's room, some regulars say you need to buy a whole pot of tea in order to sit down on tighter days.

Craig Crouch, a graduate student from the Graduate School of Education, said he feels that Tealuxe's special aura is disappearing due to developments such as this. A former regular, he assailed the "gentrification" that he said Tealuxe has undergone as a result of its commercial success.

"Most students [at Harvard] are on financial aid, it would be nice if there was a place where we could just spend $1 on tea and read a paper. What are [Tealuxe's] priorities? Is it just profit, or serving the community it's embedded in? They need to take into account all the people in the community," he said.

"The teatenders used to know me by name," said Crouch, who has not returned to Tealuxe in a month.

But despite criticism from the likes of Crouch, Tealuxe has had phenomenal success. Bruce Fernie, owner and chair of Consumer Retail Inc., whose business includes Tealuxe, is aiming for large-scale expansion.

There are two more Tealuxes scheduled to open in Boston later this year, with additional teabars planned for Chicago and Washington D.C. Fernie says he hopes to create 80 to 100 Tealuxes in urban areas nationally.

Fernie, however, insisted he doesn't take business tips from Starbucks.

"I don't want to be so homogenized, cookie-cutter," he said, in a phone conversation from Martha's Vineyard where he was spending the weekend.

Indeed, at Tealuxe, the serving of its 140 different teas is still a veritable ritualistic treat.

If you've ordered a mug, the teatender will bring an open-ended tea bag and carefully spoon out the appropriate tea from boxes that line the wall behind the register. If you've ordered a pot, the pot comes equipped with a mesh to put your tea leaves in--and a three-minute hourglass timer to make sure you steep the tea for just the right amount of time. If you desire a souvenir of your visit, you can choose to buy anything from a teapot drip catcher to mint-tea jelly.

The vast majority of those who drop in during the weekend seem a sophisticated and relatively prosperous crowd. But, Fernie said that his actual goal is to cater to both the tea aficionado and the first-timer, making the place accessible to those who otherwise would have thought of tea as "snooty" and "Victorian."

"I especially love it when coffee-drinkers who haven't much experience with tea come in and you can see it in their faces that it's the best tea they ever tasted," he said.

Sunday morning, Elizabeth A. Haynes '98 was behind the counter teatending. Haynes emphatically agreed with Fernie's statement that Tealuxe continues to be a generally friendly place.

"I work here because I really like the place, used to spend a lot of time drinking tea there anyway, "Haynes said, laughingly admitting that now she has tea for free when she works.

"Every time I've gone to Tealuxe, I really liked the people behind the counter. I though it was a great way to meet people.... It's a really nice break from papers, exams," she said.

Indeed, most regulars did not seem to be giving up on Tealuxe. However, Smith did express reservations, hoping against hope that Tealuxe's uniqueness will not be diminished by the possibility of a Tealuxe chain.

"There's a part of me that's romantic and selfish and hopes that there will only be one Tealuxe," she said.