Photo by Gary M. Smith
A low garden table. Fresh flowers. Mottled sunlight drenching a delectable assortment of scones, clotted cream, and raspberry jam. Tantalizing finger sandwiches complementing an iris floral print tea set, color-coded yellow for the rare Junshan Yin Zhen “Jun Mountain Silver Needle” yellow tea. A butterfly whisper of a breeze carrying the amorous serenade of cicadas.
A scene from a dramatic period film, or maybe a classic novel? No, it’s merely the perspective of this humble writer, relishing an afternoon tea—not at a fancy hotel in London, Hong Kong, or Sri Lanka—but inside a tranquil tearoom, not all that far from my home in New Orleans. I’ve been an enthusiastic tea drinker since 2005 when I was introduced to it at the (now closed) Indonique Tea and Chai Café on Magazine Street, which was a tea supplier to New Orleans’s finest restaurants at the time.
In recent years, interest in tea culture—spanning generations—has blossomed like a budding Camellia sinensis. According to an ongoing 2024 study by the data intelligence industry and technology platform Grand View Horizon, the tea market in the United States is expected to reach a projected revenue of $2,035.3 million by 2030—an annual growth rate of just over six percent over the next four years.
“We experience the full pleasure of human connection as we sip fragrant teas and explore homemade treats that may incorporate family recipes reflecting ethnic diversities of tearoom owners.” Angela Renals, founder of destinationtea.com
Angela Renals, founder of destinationtea.com, has been meticulously tracking the afternoon tea industry from coast to coast since 2018, using collected data to analyze how the American afternoon tea scene is evolving. She’s noticed that, although there is a high concentration of tearooms along the East Coast and in the Midwest, the Southeastern region—specifically Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Virginia—is showing unprecedented growth.
The trend can be observed in Louisiana, too. The state’s only tea farm is just over an hour north of New Orleans, and there are four others within a few hours’ drive. Agricultural scientists are conducting research in Hammond and Baton Rouge, as well as Brookhaven, Mississippi. What’s more, tearooms are dotting the landscape from the Crescent City and its suburbs to the Mississippi and Alabama coasts.
Renals sees afternoon tea as an important cultural phenomenon, with conversation being the draw. “We experience the full pleasure of human connection as we sip fragrant teas and explore homemade treats that may incorporate family recipes reflecting ethnic diversities of tearoom owners.”
Local Tea Rooms
Right here in the Gulf South, a small but exciting collective of dedicated tearooms serves a growing clientele of afternoon tea-goers. Some have led the charge, bringing tea culture to our small tri-state towns even before it was trendy; The English Tea Room in Covington, for instance, has been offering high tea experiences for more than twenty years now. Today, they are joined by a host of new concepts in neighboring towns, cities, and suburbs.
One example is Shan Shan “Aileen” Chen’s Prince Tea House—a national chain based in New York, which she franchised in Metairie this past summer. After visiting some of the locations in other cities and observing their success, she felt the time was right to bring the first Prince Tea House to the South.
As the name indicates, Prince is not only a tearoom but also a full-service tea house restaurant offering a selection of soups, sandwiches, desserts, and specialty items like salty crispy chicken and beef sukiyaki. Adorned with touches of Asian décor and soft contemporary music, the spacious dining room includes a row of comfortable booths across from an expansive line of tables. A large special events room behind the host counter accommodates sizable groups who wish to dine on the full menu while enjoying teas. Prince offers a menu that includes black, white, green, dark (Hei Cha), oolong, and a variety of tisanes and blends.
“Being from the South, we love a good, sweet tea. But . . . I felt there was an aspect to drinking tea that this area was missing. So, I introduced the concept of afternoon tea to familiarize locals to drinking tea hot and flavorful, and not just cold and sweet.” —Michelle Nichols, owner of Gardenia Tea Room in Waveland, Mississippi
Mandeville also joined the movement this year. Duchess Tea Room and Café is owned by Madina Tataryants, who operates it in partnership with her daughter Gayana. The two were favorites at the local farmers’ market as Duchess Sconery before they opened their brick-and-mortar tearoom last spring. Nestled between an ice cream shop and a pizza parlor, the Tataryants have converted their strip mall space into a tearoom oasis of homemade cuisine and quality teas.
Like Chen, they offer both afternoon “low” and heartier “high” teas, served with their tastefully glazed, golden-crusted scones, premium jams, small cakes, salads, quiches, soups, and sandwiches. I paired my turkey and bacon melt on a baguette with a jade oolong on my first visit, and the tea’s sweet and nutty vegetal notes made a memorable accompaniment to the savory meat and cheddar on French loaf.
[Read about the history of iced tea in the South, here.]
On subsequent visits I’ve noticed a consistent coterie of diners, from couples to larger afternoon tea parties, devoting hours to enjoying the immaculate and comfortable ambience, hospitality, house-made baked goods, and overall exceptional dining experience—all accompanied by a respectable selection of premium teas, such as an inspired black and oolong Parisian Dream, an enchanting Ceylon Imperial Green, and a rare herbal blend of white tea with hibiscus, basil, and strawberry, which is my favorite.
Out on the Gulf Coast, the Gardenia Tea Room in Waveland, Mississippi is earning its own fervent following since it opened in January 2023. “Being from the South, we love a good, sweet tea,” said owner Michelle Nichols. “But after attending many afternoon teas at places like the Windsor Court and Indonique Tea and Chai Cafe in New Orleans, another one in San Antonio, and others that piqued my interest over the course of years of travel, I felt there was an aspect to drinking tea that this area was missing. So, I introduced the concept of afternoon tea to familiarize locals to drinking tea hot and flavorful, and not just cold and sweet.” She disclosed that she has barely been able to keep up with demand—a claim I can confirm as I was surrounded by a nearly full house during my 1 pm weekday afternoon tea seating.
Sourced from a variety of farms, Nichols’ extensive tea selection includes blacks such as Assam and Ceylon, in addition to white, green, oolong, and herbal blends such as Lavender Lace, Red Velvet Cupcake Rooibos, and Strawberry Kiwi, which adds hibiscus to the mix. There’s even a Banana Split flavor containing coconut, strawberry, mango, apple, peach, and banana chips.
A couple hours east along the coast, nestled among historic oaks in the bucolic heart of the coastal community of Foley, Alabama, sisters Robin Peters and Susan Adams are the energetic team behind The Copper Kettle Tea Bar. Originally from Michigan, they often vacationed to the picturesque Southern escape that is Foley. On one excursion, they arrived, eager to visit their favorite tea room there, only to discover that it had closed. They locked eyes, and without hesitation, decided to open their own.
Peters continues their story, “When a charming shotgun house mere steps from magnificent Heritage Park became available in 2014, we knew this would be the perfect cozy cottage for tea novices and enthusiasts alike to take a break and enjoy a moment to refresh the body and sooth the spirit.” Indeed, the “general store” themed interior is emphasized by bottles and jars of teas and blends lining the walls, and a massive collection of copper kettles dangling from the ceiling.
The offerings include an impressive selection, sourced globally and locally, that includes black, white, green, and oolong, as well as fruit tisanes blended with blood orange, watermelon mint, and coconut lavender. There are herbals and wellness blends with dragon fruit and ginger honeymilk turmeric, and premium artisan teas such as a rare Milky Oolong, Silver Yeti, and Old Tree Yunnan.
Photo by Gary M. Smith
The New Happy Hour
In 2022, the curatorial discovery engine/social media platform Pinterest published that—based on the activity of more than 400 million users who had significantly increased searches for terms like “high tea food ideas,” “vintage tea party,” and “butterfly pea tea”—“afternoon tea is the new happy hour.”
It only makes sense: such an occasion, steeped in English tradition, is the perfect opportunity for celebrating the end of the workday without the conscientious call for a rideshare or having a head-throbbingly unproductive next morning at work. The experience offers all the social pleasure of after work drinks, in addition to the opportunity to try new and sometimes unusual teas from across the globe, often expertly paired with photogenic food offerings.
In Mandeville, Mike Powers is playing directly into this trend with ÚR Teas—a tea brewery he opened June 2021, with Úr being the Irish Gaelic translation for “fresh.” After surviving cancer, Powers decided on two goals: to go sugar-free in his diet, and to help others do the same. With several decades of experience as a successful franchise professional, he’s no stranger to business startups, and after some soul-searching, came up with his idea of using tea to initiate healthy lifestyle changes.
Since he’d always enjoyed tea but wanted to avoid the added sugar and preservatives, he embarked on a two-year journey to create an exclusive multi-step process for brewing tea that eliminated these additives. This proprietary slow-brew process reduces the bitterness and dryness of tea leaves, so the beverage can be enjoyed without adding sugar or milk.
“I’ve observed a whole new generation of younger people wholeheartedly seeking premium and unique teas from smaller farms.” —Robin Peters, The Copper Kettle Tea Bar
Powers explains, “My eighteen teas undergo an eight-step, sixteen-hour slow-brew process, resulting in an unparalleled, naturally sweet and flavorful drink.” Besides health, he’s also focused on sustainability, using only stainless-steel brewing equipment, and he bottles his teas in glass and stainless steel to reduce single-use cup waste and microplastics. Moreover, customers may return bottles for a discount on the next purchase.
Though he sources teas internationally, he’s exploring area tea farms for their unique crops and creative blends. In addition to his store, which also serves food with a focus on health, Powers has a three-wheeled modified Vespa “tea truck,” with six taps—allowing him to serve tea on the road for catered and special events.
Renals believes that, eventually, tea could replace coffee and alcohol as the socializing drink of choice in the U.S. “Those who are taking a serious interest in their health,” she said, “prefer tea over coffee because only tea has the amino acid l-theanine, which has a calming effect to reduce caffeine jitters.”
“Also,” she added, “instead of relying on syrups, tea blends using botanicals have endless flavor combinations.” She pointed out that younger adults in the twenty-five to thirty-four range are the largest demographic visiting Destination Tea’s website, “in part because they seek a social outing without the hangover.” This shift is not just about taste—it’s about mindfulness, sustainability, and kinship.
Peters, of The Copper Kettle Tea Bar, confirms the increasing interest of youth in her tearoom. “I’ve observed a whole new generation of younger people wholeheartedly seeking premium and unique teas from smaller farms.” During my visit, I noticed a contingent of just-barely-out-of-their-teens who seemed to be regulars based on the hellos and hugs.
[Read this: "The Black Drink—How native Louisianans used yaupon holly"]
Nichols, of Gardenia Tea Room, said it’s been her experience that, “Boomers come in groups, from church, book clubs, and red hat ladies. Being Gen X, my friends in that age group come for regular seatings and birthday parties; my daughter is Gen Z, and her influence brings in that generation for bridal and baby showers, and for the children’s tea events.”
Why is it that tea culture is resonating so deeply with young people? In addition to concerns about wellness, those I’ve asked say it aligns with their values; tea culture often overlaps with environmental conscientiousness, with emphasis on ethical sourcing and eco-friendliness—all of which speak to this generation with a renewed earnestness.
Gen Zs also appreciate the community that tea and tearooms create. As a visual, experiential generation, they enjoy the Instagram-worthy aesthetics that tearooms provide, reimagining what once felt dusty and old-fashioned as a place of vintage charm and carefully curated beauty.
The Language of Teatime
Novices to the world of tea might find themselves confused by the terminology of the traditions around the ancient drink. But have no fear—here’s a primer to help you ease into the intricacies of the lexicon.
“Afternoon tea” technically is “low tea” because of the low tables that hold ornate tea sets and three-tiered trays called “curates.” Traditionally, afternoon tea, as it’s more commonly called, is held around 4 pm. “High tea,” on the other hand, is a more substantial meal served with standard dinnerware on higher supper tables around 6 pm–7 pm. For the aficionado, “cream tea” is a snack of only tea and scones, normally served at 3 pm.
The curates for afternoon tea are prepared and presented in a certain order: the bottom tier provides the heartier fare of savory items like finger sandwiches, or maybe pastrami and Swiss cheese embedded in a croissant. The second course middle tier delights with scones accompanied by dreamy, clotted cream and luscious preserves. The top tier awards the grand prix of sweet pastries, petit fours, and other delicacies that could include a hazelnut macaroon, lava brownie, and perhaps a gratifying fruit tart. Note that some tearooms may stack differently, or forego the curate altogether, opting to serve courses separately on plates.
Tea and Food Pairing
When tea is taken with food instead of just by itself, there are a few culinary considerations. First, regarding the cuisine, one must consider the flavors, textures, and other characteristics—is the food sweet, savory, creamy, or spicy; light and delicate, or rich and hearty? Then, when selecting the tea, important factors include its aroma, sweetness, bitterness, and any notes of florality, fruitiness, or earthiness.
Generally, the strength and force of the tea should match the intensity of the food; lighter teas like white and green pair well with dishes like salads, seafood, and delicate pastries (as in a low tea). Stronger teas like black and dark go well with richer foods like chocolate, grilled meats, and spicy dishes (as in a high tea). And specialty teas in their own unique category, like the versatile oolong, pair well with a wide range of foods that complement the specific flavor profile, from savory to sweet to spicy.
Flavor combinations should enhance each other—citrusy desserts pair well with a lemon-infused black, green, or white teas, while floral teas are perfect with desserts featuring ingredients like lavender or rose. One oversimplification is that a light afternoon tea should always include whites, yellows, greens, and oolong while the heartier dinner tea be more robust with blacks and darks like puer, Anhua (Bian Cha), and Fuzhuan brick tea.
Much depends on the traditions and customs of particular parts of the world. Those in Tibet will serve strong black or dark tea mixed with yak butter (Po Cha) at night, while those in the U.S. will save heavier teas for earlier in the day, preferring milder teas, tisanes, and herbal blends for evening meals, especially if caffeine consumption is a concern.
Photo by Gary M. Smith
Tea Cultivation at Home
Most American tearooms import their product, sourcing mostly from Asia, where a great variety of tea is farmed in abundance. However, domestic farm-to-teapot operations are offering more, closer-to-home sourcing options as tea farms are emerging across the country, and prices of freshly grown and specialty processed tea become more competitive. A recent surge in artisan teas has increased cultivation in the U.S., with tea production occurring on more than sixty farms across seventeen states, according to the American Specialty Tea Alliance and The U.S. League of Tea Growers.
The Charleston Tea Garden in South Carolina is recognized as the oldest and largest fully mechanized tea farm in the United States, established in 1987 (but with a tea history dating back to the 1700s). However, the Fairhope Tea Plantation in Alabama, which is not mechanized, has actually been around longer—its tea plants rescued in 1979 from a former Auburn University Research and Extension Center used by Lipton as a study substation. Both farms hold prominence in the American tea industry—Charleston tending to 150,000 plants and Fairhope growing a healthy 61,000.
With a hunch that tea could be grown in the warm, humid climes of Alabama, Fairhope Plantation’s founder Donnie Barrett traveled to China in 1984 to glean what he could about growing, harvesting, and processing tea plants, touring one plantation and processing facility after another. It took another ten years of notetaking and experimentation to perfect his plants, and today, Fairhope Tea Plantation’s products are sold in shops nationwide, including The Copper Kettle Tea Bar across Weeks Bay in Foley.
More recent success stories can be found just two and a half hours west in Mississippi at The Pearl River Tea Company in Poplarville, an hour north from there at the Longleaf Tea Company in Laurel, and another hour and a half west to The Great Mississippi Tea Company (GMTC) in Brookhaven.
The Poplarville farm, owned by Donald van de Werken and Jeff Brown, added around 8,000 tea plants to their blueberry farm in 2008, and after almost a decade of growing the plants and experimenting with the process, they began production in the spring of 2017—offering black, green, and uniquely flavored blends such as gingerbread and, of course, blueberry.
Thomas and Hillary Steinwinder’s Laurel farm started with 1,200 plants on five acres in 2018, and they’ve added around 1,000 more annually, requiring an additional ten acres. Their small-batch production includes black, green, and white teas. Likewise, Timothy Gipson and Jason McDonald in Brookhaven cultivate tens of thousands of plants that turn into black, green, yellow, and oolong teas.
“While most farmers in Louisiana take August off, that’s the middle of our harvesting season. And staying hydrated out in the field is not just a problem for us—the tea plants can wilt in the heat, causing unfavorable flavor changes.” —Hans Marchese, chief grower at Fleur de Lis Tea
Tea farming in the South, until very recently, has been mostly uncharted territory with numerous, and sometimes devastating, challenges. The founder of the first tea farm in Louisiana, David Barron of Fleur De Lis Tea Company, explained, “When I started, few resources were available to help guide my journey, so there was a lot of trial and error.”
Gipson and MacDonald echoed his sentiments, describing a dramatic lessons-learned experience, when they lost all but 1,000 of their initial 30,000 shrubs due to a tragic combination of irrigation issues, drought, and seasonal timing of planting. But through tenacity and determination, they have nurtured the GMTC to success; today they farm more than 40,000 plants, operate their own processing facility, and have invested in innovative machinery that has made the process more efficient. They sell more than a dozen tea varieties across North America.
As a master woodworker, Barron initially bought his 160-acre property in Amite City, Louisiana with the intention of operating a pine tree farm. But then, in 2017, a friend offered him 1,000 tea plants as part of an experiment through the LSU AgCenter. “The original goal was to determine if tea could even be grown commercially in Louisiana,” he said. “I think we’ve proven that, and considering tea plants can live for hundreds of years, our ultimate goal now is to ensure that we can provide local, freshly grown tea for generations to come.”
Barron’s chief grower and tea production manager, Hans Marchese, explained that harvesting tea has a learning curve, with specific requirements regarding sun, water, and soil nutrients—“not common knowledge here,” he said. “I’ve been onsite five years now,” he continued, “and when I started, we didn’t know anything about growing tea. We made a lot of mistakes, but with the information we have now, we’ve dramatically improved the health of the plants. The tea farm’s biggest success was turning those first 1,000 struggling plants into a thriving production field.” The heat especially has proven to be the biggest challenge when it comes to the labor itself. “While most farmers in Louisiana take August off, that’s the middle of our harvesting season,” he lamented. “And staying hydrated out in the field is not just a problem for us—the tea plants can wilt in the heat, causing unfavorable flavor changes.”
[Read more about the emerging tea industry in Louisiana and Mississippi, here.]
Van De Werken, of Pearl River Tea Company, echoed, “Some of the biggest challenges we’ve experienced are the heat and weeds—as with any crop like our blueberries. But after that it’s just managing the fields.” He added, “Tea farming in particular requires special harvesting and processing equipment, as well as skilled labor, whether harvesting is by hand or mechanized, and those who process leaves for various types of tea need to have experience with the complexities involved, all of which are costly.” Other challenges include protecting the plant from disease, ensuring proper fertilization, providing well-draining acidic soil with the right pH, and praying for the required minimum of rainfall annually.
On the sales end, Van De Werken said one of the biggest obstacles in growing tea is keeping the price point low enough to compete with the huge volume of tea coming into the U.S. from other countries; consequentially, it’s very difficult to convince retailers to take homegrown tea. “One advantage we have,” he said, “is that we blend our dried blueberry products with our conventional green and black teas for unique flavor experiences.”
As Southern tea farmers have learned more about the intricacies of tea agriculture, they have also been on the frontlines of modern-day technological revolutions, such as the Williames Selective Tea Harvester. Barron explained that traditional harvesters act more like hedge trimmers, including less desirable mature leaves and woody stems. Geoff Williames’ design uses a patented system of rollers that pluck the delicate herbaceous top two leaves and a bud rather than arbitrarily hacking off the entire top portion of the plant. This new machine mimics human plucking and also avoids causing the “wound” left by traditional machinery, which can take around forty days to heal; this new harvester brings the plant back into production much quicker, normally within ten days.
Gipson and MacDonald collaborated with Williames to commercially field test the machine in Brookhaven. Once it was officially patented, Barron then made his own modifications to better serve his harvesting activities in Amite City. Williames’s original invention was handheld, which Barron found cumbersome for long days in the fields. So, with permission, he modified the design by adding an adjustable frame with wheels, which proved to be a game-changer for his and others’ harvesting process.
Robust Research
The dream of large-scale tea cultivation in the South is also the project of researchers at the LSU AgCenter, led in large part by Dr. Yan Chen. A professor and scientist at LSU’s School of Plant, Environmental, and Soil Sciences, Dr. Chen has immersed herself in field research on the health and sustainability of the Camellia sinensis plant in Louisiana environments. She is working on an ongoing shade study at The Horticulture Hill Farm Teaching Facility on the Baton Rouge campus to determine how light quality (color) and intensity (shade percentage) affect transplant establishment, as well as leaf morphology, quality, and chemistry.
Dr. Chen’s research also focuses on how to manage soil fertility, breeding, and hybridization in tea production—a project she studies in two fields at the LSU AgCenter Research Station in Hammond. Collaborating with Barron at Fleur De Lis, Dr. Chen is currently studying the effects of replacing the synthetic fertilizer, urea ammonium sulfate, with organic fertilizers on soil microbials, plant growth, and leaf quality.
Up against the challenges of stifling Southern heat, strict rainfall and irrigation requirements, complicated soil health, expensive labor and equipment costs, and intense competition from cheaper imports, farmers are rallying with creative ingenuity and passionate persistence, leveraging product opportunities by blending teas with compatible onsite fruit crops, and coordinating with area plant and soil researchers to discover more effective tea farming methodologies. As hurdles are cleared and prices become more competitive, the U.S. tea industry will become even more efficient at, and capable of, quenching the thirst of American tea drinkers.
Make the Leap
The tearoom isn’t any more of a passing fad than the coffeehouse boom of the 1990s. Congregating for tea is a unique combination of established custom, inspired innovation, and unifying community, making delightful use of a valued tradition. So, visit your local tearooms and savor a lifestyle that others around the world have cherished for centuries.
