Tea Time Once Again

By TAMALA M. EDWARDS

Wallpaper designer Patty Madden is a regular at Manhattan's swank W Hotel, but she's not there for its minimalist-chic decor, or the hipper-than-thou people who pack the bar. Instead she can usually be found in the hotel restaurant Heartbeat, eagerly waiting for the end of her meal. That's when James Labe, the tea sommelier, will bring out a platter of 10 loose-leaf teas. Some neophytes might balk at offerings like Bao Jong, a honey-tasting Taiwanese tea, which goes for $10 a pot. Madden, 45, who only started drinking such teas in earnest two years ago, not only ordered a pot; she also handed Labe $120 for a 6-oz. bag to take home. "I know this sounds crazy," she says, "but once you know the difference, you'll pay that."

A growing number of people know the difference. Since 1990, tea sales have more than doubled, to $4 billion a year in the U.S., owing in part to the burgeoning interest in finer teas. Classy restaurants are shedding cheap tea bags for menus of luxe loose-leaf varieties. Tea houses across the country, like San Francisco's Tea & Co., Boston's Tealuxe and Washington's Teaism, are packing in sippers. Even the high church of coffee, Starbucks, is prominently displaying this year's big acquisition: Tazo Teas. Ellen Lii, the owner of Ten Ren Tea in New York City's Chinatown, used to have an almost solely Asian clientele; now a third of her customers are non-Asians. "People used to spit it out and stick out their tongues," she says of those sampling her exotic teas. "Now they know the quality."

Indeed, tea has become so popular that it's growing beyond the pot and showing up in everything from cosmetics to candles. Avon has a supersize tea bag for the tub; Kiehl's uses it in makeup, Clairol in hair mousse. The hipster set is buying Red Flower candle and tea sets. In August, Elizabeth Arden launched its Green Tea fragrance and body line. Upscale apothecaries stock Tea Thymes home and bath products, while mass-market drugstores are moving Coty's hit, Healing Garden's green-tea line.

So what's brewing here? Tea once was regarded as a bitter-tasting second choice to coffee by most Americans. But in the mid 1990s, interest perked up when studies suggested that the drink, particularly green tea, can ward off some cancers, packs a wallop of vitamin C and even boasts fluoride for the teeth. A Harvard study this year found that a cup of black tea a day cuts the risk of heart attacks by 44%. What's more, caffeine freaks, jangly from coffee's finger-in-the-socket jolt and drop, are coming to appreciate the smoother caffeine boost of black tea.

Enthusiasts say part of the attraction is tea's Zen appeal and calming effect; others point to its communal nature. "I love tea's social aspect," says Helen Kim, 24, a Stanford graduate student who throws monthly tea parties. "It's fun to introduce people to different types and send them home with samples." Tea is a connoisseur's delight. Just as the grape produces a profusion of wines, the Camellia sinesis plant yields many variations dependent on region, temperature, time of year and part of the plant plucked. Indeed, a tasting--or cupping, in tea parlance--reveals a kaleidoscope of flavors: the smoky slide of a Lapsang souchong; the heady vanilla afternotes of Tong Ting; the intoxication of jasmine.

With all these gourmet delights, tea drinkers are finally learning what it takes to make a decent cuppa. Gone are the days when it was O.K. to drop a bag in hot water and let it stew to a pulpy mess, creating an overbrewed, bitter cup. Each tea variation--green, oolong and black--requires a different steep time and water temperature. Real enthusiasts prefer loose tea strained through infusers, which makes for a stronger, finer brew. Still, there's no need to become Martha Stewart to make tea. "It's not about getting it right, but what you like," says Teaism owner Michelle Brown.

And the teacup runneth over, with purveyors only planning to offer more. Lipton is test-marketing fancy-tea kiosks to be rolled out in places like hotels, airports and corporate dining rooms. Saks Fifth Avenue has discontinued its coffee line but plans an expansion next year of its private-label loose-leaf teas. And then there's Madden, who carries around her own tea, which recently fell out of her portfolio during a business dinner in Las Vegas. "Can I try some?" her companion asked. By the end of the meal, the designer had both a new client and a new convert.