We found the quiet shop you’ve been looking for
And it was right downtown the whole time. It’s been there for about a year now. Ku Cha House of Tea is on 13th between Pearl and Spruce and get this — IT DOESN’T HAVE WIRELESS!!! Ok, some might consider this sacrilegious in Boulder, but I know many of you are going to consider it a godsend antidote to the laptop libraries sprouting up all over town in otherwise fine shops such as Folsom St., The Cup and Saxy’s.
Ku Cha is a combo retail tea shop — selling around a hundred different loose-leaf teas and steepware — and a ‘traditional’ tea house with a sublimely relaxing atmosphere. No laptops in sight, just a soothing lounge where you can write in your little notebook, read the newspaper, or just stare at the ceiling without being bombarded by the obnoxiously loud noise music of the Goat. The quiet, laptop-free atmosphere also means the Ku Cha is generally empty. Good for people seeking refuge, bad for the shop. Helpfully they are doing well enough to stay in business because Boulder certainly needs some quiet spots, especially since the demise of Tea Spot.
Another shop on the blocks
The venerable Tea Spot has a sign up on the cash register announcing their demise. Sad. The location is a bit awkward. You’d think the ice rink plaza would get more foot traffic but it’s just enough out of the way to be relatively unvisited. The Tea Spot sign says that the owners are doing well in their wholesaling business so that’s where they’ll focus their efforts from here forward, the end of the lease being a good time for them to pull away from the retail shop. New owners could jump in on favorable lease terms (seems like business leases are going ridiculously cheap in Boulder right now) and an already-completed buildout.
So where does that leave the Boulder coffee shop scene?
- Amante for sale
- Playgrounds for sale (and closed until somebody buys it)
- Organica folded about 6-9 months ago
- Sidney’s just sold
- Tea Spot closing
Who is doing well? The obvious ones (meaning they’re always full):
- Amante NoBo
- Folsom St. Coffee
- Laughing Goat
- Logan’s (full all day though?)
- The Cup
- Saxy’s (but see recent post decrying the “success“)
- Starbucks (hahaha) … actually, only the Hill location seems to be consistently busy
- Vic’s (Ideal)
how to make tea
alright, so clearly tea ain’t that hard, right? insert leaves, add hot water. done.
this is how 98% of the shops in Boulder serve tea and how close to 100% of them outside of Boulder do it.
but this reviewer drinks more tea than coffee and is tired of being discriminated against for it. Boulder coffee shops, hear me: TURN DOWN YOUR DAMN HOT WATER DISPENSERS!!
Look, everybody has a different opinion of the proper water temperatures for various teas, but in general this list of proper temperatures will do. Only the pu’erhs need be boiled and I’d be willing to bet the number of dedicated pu’erh drinkers in Boulder is fewer than 5. The black teas come in under boiling and the greens and whites significantly so, all the way down to 160°F for some. But when I can’t drink my tea for 10 minutes because it still hasn’t cooled enough to not strip the paint off my tongue then there’s a problem. The water is too hot for the tea, and too hot for me.
The only shop that I have come across so far that does it right is Tea Spot. Tea Spot not only dails down the temperature for their more delicate teas, they have three different pots set to three different temperatures to match what each individual tea needs. Not even erstwhile Pekoe, also specializing in tea, does right by temperature control. Everybody else gladly ignores the issue, happily dispensing scalding, sizzling water in every cup. Boulder shops, next time your machine guy comes around, please ask him to at least dial you down to 180°F? Nice compromise for all the different temperatures required for your teas?
And this isn’t even getting into steep times. Again, Tea Spot has it wired, everybody else (including Pekoe) is clueless. Tea Spot holds your tea back while timing your steep, making sure they get it right. Everybody else hands it to you right away and you’re on your own. Only the most dedicated tea drinkers know that many green teas should only get 2-3 minutes in the water. Two minutes? That time is gone between the initial request and the final transaction, the details of the steep forgotten in the blur of the moment. Who can know how long the tea has been steeping? Not the baristas of these coffee-oriented shops who couldn’t care less about the bitters that arise in oversteeped green tea.
I can’t fathom why a shop (and this includes many in Boulder) would spend the time and energy to gather a pantry of fine loose leafs and a cupboard of personal steeping equipment, only to potentially ruin the tea each time by ignoring the water temperature and steep time. Maybe the time will come yet….
Tis the Season at the Tea Spot
I’ve really been stoked on afternoons at the Tea Spot recently. Not only does it limit the amount of night bike riding I have to do (very unsafe, by the way) but the holiday ice skating rink makes for some entertaining viewing, and interesting attire?! I can always find a good table and to be quite honest, the staff is some of the best around. Maybe the location keeps it a little less busy, but whatever the reason, I dig it.
Try the Genmaicha – good caffeine and a good honest earthy flavor. Oh yeah, they totally welcome a “re-steep” and go as so far as to bring it out to you every time!
T-spot
The point is tea, not coffee. So the tea is very good with a big selection. The coffee is pretty good, too. Maybe it’s the aforementioned Conscious Coffees?
But the best part about Tea Spot is the work environment. It’s always quiet and mellow in here, rarely more than half full, feels like you’re in a tucked-away corner, little traffic, etc. (There was a bomb squad and bomb robot just across the street when I pulled up today, but hey, once I got inside I was blissfully unaware of the commotion. That does bring up a point though: what in the sam hell is Boulder PD doing with a bomb robot?) You never feel bad about taking up a table for hours at a time. And maybe it’s quiet because it’s a tea place, so you don’t get the really loud espresso-making banging noises that hit your ears at Cup and other places.
It’s sort of hard to find, but in that little plaza with the seasonal ice skating rink. You know, the place where the Kitchen sets up and gives away free pulled pork sandwiches on Saturdays in the summer (yum!!). 13th Street just north of Canyon (that little squirt of a NB one-way street with the SB tree-lined bike lane).
