Picnics and Tastings

Tea in the Park

 Tea asks little of us — tea leaves, heat, water, and a vessel to hold it all. The bare necessities are few. Yet tea has captivated humanity for thousands of years, and the reason is not found in the cup alone.

It is found in the quality of an afternoon. In favorable weather, in beautiful surroundings, in the unhurried company of good people. These are the conditions that elevated tea from simple sustenance to the world's second most beloved beverage.

We honor this tradition through our Tea in the Park gatherings. We meet beneath the open skies and shaded canopies of our city parks, like Tower Grove Park, Forest Park, and Laumeier Sculpture Park. This is where the setting becomes as much a part of the experience as what's in the pot.

Tastings & Deep Dives

Our tea tastings are designed to expand both your knowledge and your palate. Tea offers an enormous spectrum of flavor, fragrance, and feeling — and the best way to understand it is to taste attentively, side by side.

Each session focuses on a related group of teas. Oolong, for instance, is a category worth exploring, but it's also a vast one. So we narrow the lens. We might compare oolongs from different regions, or explore several teas from within a single region. We can go further still: the same producer across different harvest years, or the same leaves from the same producer and year, processed in different ways. The narrower the comparison, the more clearly the differences reveal themselves.

Deep Dives take that same idea further. These sessions are longer, more detailed, and more specific — and they're my favorite kind of tasting to lead. Some have run five hours, snack breaks included. (A great deal of tea on an empty stomach is not a good idea.)

Upcoming Tastings and Deep Dives are posted here and on our social media. You can also sign up for our Tastings & Deep Dives newsletter to be the first to know.