Chris Lindstrom introduces the latest episode of the Food About Town podcast, diving into the world of tea with Niraj Lama, the owner of Happy Earth Tea in Rochester. They kick things off by discussing why Rochester is a unique spot for tea culture and how Neeraj's journey from Darjeeling, India, to the U.S. has shaped his approach to tea. The episode highlights the importance of understanding tea's origins and the impact of seasonality on flavor, particularly focusing on the delicate and vibrant characteristics of spring teas. Neeraj shares insights on how to create an inviting atmosphere in his tea shop, emphasizing the significance of hospitality in the tea experience. Listeners are encouraged to visit Happy Earth Tea to explore a wide variety of teas and partake in the community-oriented events that celebrate this cherished beverage.

Links referenced in this episode:

• happyearthtea.com

Mentioned in this episode:

Mind of Magnus

Artist Magnus Champlin (@magnusapollo) interviews guests sharing the stories and life adventures with the goal of expanding minds.

Pauly Guglielmo Show

Pauly Guglielmo is a former radio guy turned food business entrepreneur. While running a manufacturing facility is his day job, he likes to dust off his broadcasting skills once a week on this podcast and talk to entrepreneurs and other influencers. https://pauly-guglielmo-show.captivate.fm/

Joe Bean Roasters

Joe Bean Coffee - Coffee that lifts everyone. https://shop.joebeanroasters.com

I'm Chris Lindstrom and this is the Food About Town podcast.

Rochester.

Well, why Rochester?

Chris Lindstrom was a hoot.

He was just so much fun.

He never stopped talking.

I mean, it was great.

Here's a good idea.

Have a point.

It makes it so much more interesting for the listener, and we don't need.

Any characters around to give the joint atmosphere.

Is that clear?

We can, because I'm a pro.

That's what pros do.

I'm a professional.

Look it up in the book.

But now, yeah, I'm thinking I'm back.

And we are back with another episode of the Food About Town podcast.

And boy, there's so much going on right now.

Thankfully, we're starting to record a bit more for Food About Town, and while I'm still producing for everybody else and a lot of life going on.

But I'm here with a guest that I've loved chatting with for so many years.

I'm embarrassed we haven't had him over, but.

But I'm really glad we have him over today.

Guest, why don't you introduce yourself?

My name is Neeraj Lama.

I'm the owner of Happy Earth Tea, which is located in the South Wedge.

And I think very shortly thereafter we met.

And yes, it's a. I'm glad you finally invited me, actually.

Well, I think it's, it's, it's also hard when you know somebody for so long, you bring it up casually and then you don't make the official invite.

Right.

Because we're both, you know, we both end up very busy with doing our.

Both our main jobs and everything else and being, you know, with your family and everything else.

No, I think to be fair, we did, we did make attempts in the past.

It just didn't come together.

Yeah, we did, and I'm really glad we're doing it.

So let's get the rest of the plugs out.

So Happy Earth Tea.

Where can they find it online so they can go check it out?

Check out ours and everything else for the brick and mortar.

But they can also order online.

Yeah.

So we are happyearthtea.com and we are located.

Otherwise, if you would like to see our faces and want to have tea served by us, you can pop into our brick and mortar store, Tea House, 6 9, 6 South Ave.

It's in the corner of South South Avenue and Gregory.

And we've been there a little over five years.

This is our Third location, so to speak.

Our second location.

Yeah, because that's like.

I mean, let.

Let's talk about the whole experience in the store first.

Because, you know, seeing from where you started in Rochester, which was at the Hungerford Building.

Right.

You know, you know, RIP Hungerford Building for what it.

For what it was.

But I remember going and visiting you there and taking classes and, you know, tasting things, and then you had a small area in the South Wedge.

But the store you have now is just such a.

Such a great distillation of the feeling that I get talking with you.

The feeling I get when I'm tasting the teaspoon that you bring in is there's.

It's just a very positive environment.

It's a very calming environment.

But it's also a place where if you want to really taste and learn about things, you can do that too.

It's kind of a place.

Hey, if you just want to relax, it's great.

If you want to really dive into tea, it's great.

Or if you just want a fun beverage, it's also great.

When you're thinking about what did you want to provide to the customers when you were making this version of Happy Earth tea?

What were all the things you were thinking about?

Because that's how I feel about it.

Yeah, it was something.

I moved from India, from Darjeeling.

So it's not just a tea, it's a place, and it's up in the Himalayas.

And I grew up around a lot of tea.

And before coming to the States, I used to be a journalist.

And when I found myself here, which happened because I met a woman who was traveling through India, and I joked that I was just extending local hospitality, and she took it seriously.

And we got married, had kids.

Both the kids were born in India, so everything was great.

And then one day Mary says, I think I want to go home.

So that's how we ended up here in Rochester.

I had never heard of upstate New York being a thing.

I only knew New York well.

Was that something you were already educated in and working in and around English a lot?

Yes, I actually went to university for masters in journalism.

And.

Well, the.

The fact that I speak and a lot of Indians speak English is.

So one of the things that, that the legacy is English is, is.

Should I say widely, perhaps.

Yeah, widely spoken in India.

And so anyhow, once I got here, I was a bit of a burnt out journalist, you know, and I didn't want to go into that profession any longer because, yeah, I also, this place being a new place, I don't, I didn't get the nuances of it and I didn't feel like I had the sort of the grounding to report on.

So.

So what was your, what was your, you know, your vertical in journalism?

What was your.

Did you have like a subject you covered mostly?

No, so I was.

What, what, what you, what you call a correspondent.

So you are placed in a, in a, in a region and you are responsible for that entire region, whatever happens there.

It could be anywhere from just a traffic accident to a political tumult, which, which we saw a lot.

And of course, one of the things that I covered was the tea industry because as I was saying, we have a lot of tea, so tea, the economy of Darjeeling region depends a lot on tea.

So I had a lot of, A lot of experience that way as a journalist with, with the tea industry.

Yeah.

And that's also, you know, just looking at a map, it's like it's such a specific location within India as well.

Because, you know, when it comes to, I don't know, you know, the main area that people think of as the shape, like this is just up all the way north, all the way east.

Right.

Like, and it's so it's almost isolated from the rest of, from the rest of India, such that it is, it is Chris.

And, and one of the things that I love to say about Darjeeling and because you're, you are obviously a foodie, is this is the place where the curry meets the noodles.

Okay.

This is where exactly where if you come to Darjeeling, you will get your butter chicken masala and you will also get the dumplings and the momos, which.

Shout out to Nepal.

Guys are.

Yeah.

Familiar with now because of a lot of Nepali restaurants here.

Yeah.

It has to be kind of interesting to see that Nepalese influence coming into, into Rochester.

Yeah.

Where like, you know, and the more you learn about food and the.

It forces you to learn about history and culture.

Right.

Because every time you taste something, you're like, wait, why does this taste like this?

Because I remember like for the first time when I tasted it was, it was a place, it was a West Asian restaurant, but it was, it was your many food.

Yeah.

And, and I tasted for the first time and they were serving tandoor bread.

I'm like, why are they serving tandoor bread?

This doesn't make any sense.

And then I learned about the history and it was British colonialism and Indian, Indian workers being non voluntarily brought to, to Yemen and then it became part of culture.

But a lot of, there was a, a Persian influence in the Indian cuisine through the Mughal empire, which was before the British empire.

Okay.

A lot of, lot of people, a lot of the.

Was the Mughals who came from the Middle east and, and conquered India and was there right from the 12th century to the 16th, 17th century when the British came and then they sort of toppled them and then they took over.

But yeah, that's a lot of the, the, the.

Sorry, we're gonna go.

No, please.

I'm deep into food.

I'm intrigued.

Yeah.

The biryani and such.

You have the Hyderabad, Hyderabad biryani in Henrietta now.

If you eat biryani, it's like pilaf.

That's what it is.

It comes from the Middle east and it's a great sort of a jam up that happens in India because the Indian version is definitely much more flamboyant in its use of spices and all.

I mean, I don't think any country equates comes equal to the way in which spices is used, are used in a cuisine.

Just they go over the top, but still manage to somehow land it, you know?

Well, and it's that, that the balance of intensity.

Right?

And that's something that, when we're talking about anything when it comes to food or you know, beverage is you want to have clear, distinct flavors, but you also want balance.

Right?

And that, but that's everything in both food and drink and life is.

We're all looking for and probably struggling to find balance in everything that we do is like there's nothing quite like traveling and you're driving, you're walking in a neighborhood and you just smell something amazing.

You're like, damn, I know there's an Indian restaurant around here somewhere.

And it's such.

Such a distinct thing.

And there's nothing quite, there's nothing quite like it.

And that, that intensity, that drive towards all these punchy flavors, but that balance, the balance.

If it's not balanced, then it's like, oh, it's not really, it's not really Indian food at that point.

No, no.

Yeah, yeah.

So anyhow, growing up with that and the, and the noodles and the more of the Asians, if you will, cuisine was something that sort of.

We straddled both sides.

That's where talking about, you know, you're trying to locate Darjeeling in the world map there.

So, so that's where we straddle these two worlds.

But it is also very famous for its tea.

And I decided to go into tea as a way to sort of stay in touch with my roots.

I thought that would be an easy way to stay connected with my peeps back in India.

And also I felt that when my kids, my family went back there, they would not, God forbid, go as tourists.

Right.

You know, that they had a connection.

And, and it started from there, but it was creating what I loved about, about tea was creating this culture around it.

It's a very, in some ways, tea has been around, of course, for, for, for, for 5,000 years around the world.

And tea has been very much part of the American landscape too.

So, you know, politically speaking, with the Tea Party and all that stuff, but yet America still remains a predominantly coffee drinking nation, you know, and tea is only just making its baby steps, I feel now, you know.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

So it gave me, in a way, a clean canvas to work with.

People didn't have a preconceived idea about what tea is or even if they had ideas, it wasn't that strong.

So I could, I could create what I wanted to create.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, with, with coffee, I think it also.

You dovetailed with a lot of the modern coffee movement.

Yeah.

As well.

And I think that was a very fortuitous time.

It just happened to be that.

Yeah, yeah, it worked out really well because there's like people learning about, oh, what does it take to make serious coffee?

Right.

You know, specialty coffee.

And, you know, I think what a lot of people were thinking of, when they think of when they were thinking of, oh, I'm going for, for nicer tea, was, you know, additives, was fruit additives and all these other things.

And there were chains that were pushing this and there was a very specific view of tea in the same way that people had specific ideas of coffee where they wanted extra sugar, extra flavors, extra, you know, extra cream, extra this.

And there is this, I think, opening of people's perceptions to.

We can taste, we can taste origin through coffee in ways that are even more prominent sometimes than people think of as wine.

Right, right.

We can taste origin in tea.

We can taste origin in coffee.

Yeah.

We can taste a place we can Taste a culture right through how they're processing these things.

When you, when you're first starting to tell people about this, you know, those first opportunities to start to show people.

How are you thinking about describing it to people that haven't, that hadn't opened their minds to this before?

Beyond.

Oh, there's a tea shop.

I'm just going to go in.

How did you think about not educating but making them excited about this?

Yeah, that's, that's a beautiful question, Chris.

Because partly because I was so sort of raised in tea culture, imbued so much into it that for me it, it was a bit of an exercise to be excited about it in the way, because tea was the only beverage I knew.

Tea is the only beverage in India.

And now of course the coffee world has come.

Starbucks is there and, and, and Starbucks like, Starbucks like cafes all around.

So.

But until then, tea in India was just a, a drink that you could drink on the street sides and the street corners and in company boardrooms, in your living room, everywhere.

It was tea.

That's all.

You know, even when I was working as a journalist, we actually had a guy who, whose sole job was to make tea and deliver it to, to us as we worked.

Wow.

All the time he was walking around serving tea and it was a tea slightly more like the British style, which, by which, by which I mean milk and sugar, that kind of stuff.

So, so we didn't think so much about it.

And so, so I must, I must confess that for me too, once I came here and I started thinking about, about tea as a, as a vocation, so to speak, as a business, it forced me to look at it afresh, to look at it anew.

And as I said, you know, I found the canvas very wide open, clean.

And so I started to build on that.

A lot of it was my own personal self journey there, you know, to learn about it.

I mean, origin was the, the, the seeking.

The origin was, was, was it started as seeking the taste of home for me.

And so, so that, that became very important when I was trying to tell the story of tea.

It took me a while to figure out my, my spiel, if you will.

I started selling at the public market.

Oh, that's where I started.

It was the holidays of the market.

They had it for I think, five weekends or so.

So I was there the first day.

It was a blizzard and we all got wiped out.

But I sold my four, four packets of Darjeeling tea and I was absolutely thrilled the car's battery died and all that crazy stuff, but it made it all the more memorable.

But the first time I was selling tea at the public market, I was like, telling the story about Darjeeling, that Darjeeling is a place which is.

I knew that it's famous for tea, you know, and people may know, may or may not know that Darjeeling is a place, but they've sort of have me, and I was hoping they would have heard of it.

So.

And believe it or not, there were a few people who.

With whom it resonated and it started to slowly gain traction, you know, and.

And I was then educating myself and then educating the customers about tea.

And eventually we expanded to include teas from other countries.

But the origin stories, I realized, was very, very important.

And as much as possible, we were trying to pursue that to.

To have a clear sense of where the tea was coming from, you know, as.

As it wasn't always possible economically to go and visit these gardens.

But today I'm in a situation.

We are in a situation where we can do that.

And I've been trying to go out more and more to our.

Our suppliers and.

And visit them, learn from them, see.

See the.

See the land, to see the soil, see the people that work then.

And.

And because that is the story that sits in your cup as you drink, you know.

Yeah.

And I think that's.

It's a fascinating way of thinking about it.

And I kind of want to.

I want to grab one part of that for a second.

When you said that this process was also you being educated.

Absolutely.

Because you mentioned a lot of T as utilitarian, right?

T is, yes.

Yeah.

T was.

Tea was all the time.

Tea was morning.

Tea was casual.

But tea can be also purposeful and contemplative and can be amazing and delightful.

Were you already going down that route of, you know, sitting with tea and savoring and enjoying it when you started this, or did part of that journey come along with the education and more tasting and, you know, learning about different origins and learning about that stuff.

Did that.

Was that already in you, or were you learning about that when you started this?

Yeah, it was a lot of it.

A lot of it happened once I started the business.

Yeah.

As a journalist, I did know the technicalities of it.

I was always.

Always sort of well versed with that because I had to write about it.

Okay.

You know, the weather was bad this year, the springs, the spring harvest was sort of subpar, so I knew that kind of stuff.

You know, I knew the Fact that okay, organic tea is better.

They were making strides in it.

And it also helped with the.

Say something as, as simple as soil conservation in the hills.

These are mountains we're talking about, you know, so.

Which means not, not very deep soil, but you know, having it with elevations, really important.

It is.

Yeah.

So with, with the, with in the, in the mountains, soil erosion is a huge problem.

So if you practice intensive agriculture, monoculture and such, it always has a huge impact upstream, but downstream, downstream too, you know, so, so when they, when they started bringing in these, these Brazilian grasses and such, to, to.

To hold on not not only to, to, to make the hill, for bringing more nitrogen to the soil.

This sort of agriculture where this sort of growing practices, the organic.

Kind of regenerative agriculture.

Yeah, regenerative isn't quite there yet.

They are not there yet.

But, but there is one garden in, in Nepal that we work with.

Jun Chiabari only.

Only that I think have gone to that level where thinking in terms of regenerative agriculture in Darjeeling right now, organic is.

But I think they're trying to figure out how to do it.

There is a lot of.

Lot of other pressures working over there.

There's a lot of political uncertainty.

And this year right now, they're struggling with the war in Middle east because of high prices of, of.

Of.

Of.

Of gas that they use for, for firing the, the, the furnaces that, that dry the tea.

Right.

So the, the, the diesel and the petrol prices are more or less stable there.

But the price of what they call lng, the cook, the cooking gas, that's what they use a lot in these, in these ovens where these teas are dried in the processing.

So that's become very, very hard to procure.

So they're struggling with.

So these sort of things happen, you know, and as, and with the climate change too.

The climate change has had a huge impact there, the tea.

And sadly that the, the it is.

It is not just in Darjeeling, of course.

It's also happening in China and Taiwan with our suppliers.

We always talk about it, you know, like, it's always keeping fingers crossed, saying, hey, you know, like, what was the winter like?

Did it rain or not?

Was there enough precipitation?

You know, because those few winter showers really determine the quality of tea in spring.

And then so that if the rains fail in winter, you know, that spring is going to be touch and go.

Touch of.

How do you say?

Yeah, touch and go.

Touch and go, yeah.

What I think you're also talking about spring and being such A such a critical season for tea.

And also, as you know, we're kind of gonna bounce into, like, talking about specific tea and flavors, but something where, you know, people who are really into tea, they are eagerly awaiting spring teas coming out because it is.

It has a lot of delicate flavors.

It's very.

It's vibrant, it's bouncy, it's floral.

It's all these things.

And you bring in a lot of spring teas or first flush teas from Darjeeling.

Not just from one place, but a couple different.

A few different places.

Can you talk about, you know, let's talk about the life cycle of tea, but.

And then let's focus on spring because you just got, you know, first flush teas, spring teas in.

And that's a really exciting time when you want to taste.

What does this season taste like from this place?

Right, right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, again, this is a lot of folks may not be aware of is the seasonality of teas is very.

Is a thing in the tea world.

When you're trying to drink a spring tea and you are trying to compare it with, say, the summer tea, there are two completely different beverages, almost from.

The same farm, from the same plants.

From the same plants.

And it's just.

And I think that's one of the biggest differences in tea is that you're drinking one plant.

Right.

We're drinking kamakinesis.

That is the plant.

Right.

That is tea.

It's not that there's.

There is one plant.

Yeah.

And it's the origin, the style of harvest, the season of harvest, the processing that gives you all the different flavors.

And spring is the smallest, the freshest, the lightest.

Right.

But is widely cherished.

Yes.

And, yeah, just like coffee has a plant, tea also comes from a particular plant.

Not many people realize that because of some reasonable confusion in terms of, you know, chamomile makes a tea.

We call it a mint tea.

You know, so all that also passes us tea.

But when we are talking about black tea, green tea, oolongs, matcha, and white tea and yellow tea, that is, as you pointed out, comes from a particular plant called Camellia sinensis, and it is a plant that originated in India and China.

That's the origins of the.

Of that plant.

But now it is widely grown around the world, for the most part.

So.

Yes.

So the seasonality of tea right now, you did sort of find out about our announcement of first flush.

It is always a huge celebration for us.

First flush is the first picking of the year, basically, that's what it is.

It's a gardening term, actually, when plants produce the first shoots of leaves.

First shoot of leaves, first shoots of the year.

That's the plant flushing, you know, so the first flush is the picking of those leaves and making of the tea.

It is usually of the, of a very delicate nature, but it is flavorful.

The flavors are floral, grassy, sweet, and it can have the, these peachy notes to it.

It just is elegant.

It is like, it's like, it's sparkling.

It has a, it has a, it has an effervescence to it.

Yeah.

And I think that's one of the great things about tea too is like, you might be somebody who really likes more oxidized, darker flavors or aged flavors.

And then you have this complete counterbalance, right.

Of this, of this delicate, bouncy, exciting flavors.

You know, it's floral, citruses and all these things.

And you get to also then sit with those and like, it's such a great exercise to taste it too.

One, it's, it's fun.

And two, it's just these flavors are, they never cease to give you a smile when you're tasting them because they are, they're all these great flavors.

Yes.

And you might have to work it a little bit, but what a great thing to work with.

Yes, yes.

I like to say, how do you do.

People often ask me, how do you know it's a good tea?

I said, if it makes you smile, it's a great tea.

And you said, you know it makes you smile.

Yeah.

When, when you drink a good tea, you just know it.

And it's, it's, it can be a bit of an out of body experience, you know, and right now we did have a bit of a dry spring in the beginning.

And, and sometimes what happens with this, with this is it is sometimes from this sort of an adverse situation, you actually have more concentration of flavors which, the end result makes the tea really bright.

And, and it just has that sparkle, you know?

Yeah.

So this year this is what we have noticed in the tea.

And so if you get a chance, we have one tea that we've just released.

Rishihat.

Last week and only today, only today we received the tea from another tea state, from Darjeeling, from.

Okay, tea state.

And that should be hitting our shelves and online tomorrow.

Oh, wow.

So, yeah, so these teas were picked just weeks before, weeks ago.

They are super fresh directly from the gardens.

These are coming from like 6,000 on an average, about 6,000ft elevation.

Elevations really matter when it comes to fine Teas.

Yeah.

You know, people come looking for, as they say, high mountain teas.

It's just like coffee.

Yeah.

That lives in similar elevations.

And it really does make a difference because it grows that little bit slower.

Exactly.

It's struggling sometimes.

That's struggle brings more flavor.

Yeah, yeah.

The stress and the, and the, the constant cover of, of mists in, in that part of the world because it's subtropical.

So there is a lot of, a lot of moisture in that area and clouds hang low, you know, up in the higher elevation.

So it gets, it gets a natural shading.

That and that, that shading and that cool climate and the elevation really brings out some of the most exquisite flavors of the tea.

And here I must note that teas that come from the lowlands, they, I hate to say it, but they don't have that sort of complexity, those nuances.

And those are the teas that go into the breakfast blends.

They're commodity teas.

The commodity teas come from lowlands where flatlands and, which are harvested and manufactured by shiploads, you know.

Yeah.

And those teas, therefore, whereas the teas that come from the mountains, they are very, they are, they are small lots.

They don't make too much of it.

So whenever you get teas from say, Darjeeling in those places like Nepal, from the higher, higher elevation gardens, those are, those are really valuable, precious tea.

Yeah.

Because not much of it is made and especially spring harvest.

Spring harvests just tend to be limited in quantity.

Well, we are going to take a break, but make sure you go swing over and try some of these spring teas and try teas from all over.

Go to Happy Earth Tea over in the south wedge.

Visit happyearthtea.com and we'll be right back with more with Niroslama talking about tea.

And we're back with the second half of our conversation with neeraj Lama from Happyearth Tea.

Happyearth tea.com Go buy your first Lush Spring Teas from Darjeeling.

Two different versions will be available by the time that you are listening to this.

So we finish off talking about some of those teas and in the break, I was just mentioning like, how much, how much delight I get from brewing tea at work because, like, my coffee process is so intense and like we have like hot water, you know, reverse osmosis, hot water, you know, you know, dispensing at work.

And I have a little French press, a little bodum French press.

It's those mini ones.

Right, right.

And I get to, like, use your teas and do multiple steeps and really enjoy something at work.

And that's one of the great things about loose leaf tea is you get so much enjoyment out of it.

It's not just that first brewing, like, you know, when you're, when you're using tea bags and commodity teas, you're not getting a lot out of the second and third and, you know, steeps.

But I'm getting three out of almost every time I do it at work.

And like, what an amazing thing that you get to enjoy that tea through different flavors and different intensity levels.

When you're telling people how to make the kind of teas that you have on offer, how do you usually tell people how to make it?

Yes.

So we try to do it without making it seem too much involved.

We don't want to make it seem that, oh, my God, this is a lot of work.

Now you.

It seems you love working hard to get your cup of coffee.

I do like.

I do like the word narration.

And I agree.

And it's.

Yeah, there's a. I find a delight in the, in the nerdery of.

Of beverage from spirits, as you can see in the studio, to coffee, to.

To tea, to wine.

I love the nerdery of beverages.

But admittedly, at work, I don't have a temp cattle.

Right.

I don't have a. I don't have a degrees.

I don't have a, you know, a to the degree kettle at work.

I don't have a scale, but I'm still making something that is really delightful.

Yeah.

And I think it is.

I think these kind of teas are a little more forgiving and you can make these amazing beverages.

You don't have to have it down to the degree.

Yes.

You can get more precision and measuring, but you can still make something great.

Yeah.

So.

So, you know, depending upon the kind of tea that you are making, whether it's black or green, oolong, lightly oxidized or heavily oxidized oolong, or other kinds of tea, we usually offer in our packages, and if you're there in our shop, we will tell you what are the ideal temperatures for these teas.

You know, so they vary from tea to tea or types of tea.

But at the same time, you know, I have, I think in my course of.

Of journey, I'm at a place where I don't want to.

To work too hard to make my cup of tea, you know, because it's not.

It's meant to, it is meant to be not that stressful.

So I, I said just be present with, with your cup, you know, and you will, you'll do the right thing.

You cannot.

Especially when you're dealing with fine teas.

It's hard to spoil them, you know, it's, it is, it is.

They are forgiving.

They will guide you.

You know, they.

Maybe it sounds a bit esoteric saying that they'll guide you, but you know what I mean?

It is, you may, you may make a mistake with the first cup, but by second cup you'll know, hey, you know, I may have over steeped that tea or I may have used too much, too high of a temperature in the water.

Yeah.

But, yes, but I will not debate about whether it should be 185 or 176, you know, or 180.

Yeah.

I'd say, hey, go, go close to boiling, but don't, don't boil the water there.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's also a great, it's a great general note too, is, yes, we can get, we can get mired in the details, but it's something I really like talking about with people who, you know, you get to a point when you're in the journey of being serious about food and drink, right?

Is that at first you're just excited to be there.

Right?

Right.

And then you learn more and you become pedantic, right?

You think, oh, I know enough.

You, I have to do it this way.

And then you get to the point where you're trusting your palate and you trust that you know what you're doing.

Right.

And then you start to relax again.

Right?

Right.

And you're not chasing the most rare, you're not chasing the most extreme things, you're chasing delight, you're chasing enjoyment.

And you're tasting the experience instead of worrying about every little detail.

And it's something I see a lot of people doing, let's say in spirits, right?

They start chasing the rare things, the expensive things, instead of tasting and learning your palate, learning what you love, right?

And I think that's.

It's such a great point that you made, is that like, once you learn, hey, what do I love about this tea?

And maybe it's tea in general, but then you learn, oh, this tea, I like it a little bit more extracted.

I like this one a little less extracted, but that's knowing yourself, knowing your palate and tasting and adjusting to what you're enjoying in a cup.

Yeah, you're, you're absolutely right.

I mean, none of these things are written in stone or how you make must brew a cup of tea, you know, and so you, you're absolutely right.

There are, there are days when I want, when I want it stronger and I will make sure, make sure I get it that way.

And there are days the same tea, I don't want it that way and I will treat it differently, you know, so it really varies from, from day to day, mood to mood, you know, and, and I think you're also right that that journey of, of.

Of getting pedantic with, with stuff is sometimes a, you know, for me it kills the fun, you know.

Yeah.

And.

And also sometimes I think it debtors.

The.

A person who might be curious to learn about tea.

You know, when you throw at them all these rules about, you know, how this tea needs to be made, it just is so stressful that they might just walk away and, and grab, you know, a bottle of soda or something, but they don't have to think about anything like that.

That.

Yeah.

And I think that's, that's why when we, when we started, I purposefully used, you know, exciting somebody about it.

Yeah.

And not educating.

Right.

Some people want to be educated.

Some people like, hey, I'm going to absorb everything you throw at me because that's.

I love that, that I love the nerdery, but that's not going to work for a lot of people.

I've been talking about this trip a lot just because I went to, went to Calgary and in Canada in, in the fall last year.

And it's one of the best coffee scenes I've ever been to.

And what I, what I observed there was how much the places were really serious about making great coffee, but how few of the places were portraying it seriously.

They were focused on the experience.

They were focused on delighting people.

Right.

Instead of educating and telling them that their choices are wrong was delighting them.

And if they're delighted, they're going to ask questions and hey, they're gonna come back.

Which is the other thing.

And that's something that I think is a combination of intentionality with what a shop does.

And that's something I think you've done an extraordinary job of is not only having amazing sourcing from, you know, both Darjeeling, India, Nepal, China, you know, different sources of teas and all excellent.

And having more oxidized, you know, darker black teas versus light oxidized versus oolong versus, you know, pu airs.

All these amazing selections and teaware.

It's a full service Shop and a place you have to go if you, even if you're kind of interested.

But I think the thing that you've done equally as well, if not better, is having the right people and the right vibes in the shop.

And I don't say that in the like modern kind of way, is that it has a feel, but that's all on purpose.

And the people that you've brought in, they make that experience for everybody.

When you're thinking about who to hire to represent the experience of Happy Earth tea, how do you, how do you go through that process with new people?

And I'll bring up a certain person after.

But like how do you, how do you hire to provide that kind of experience?

Yeah.

Firstly, I'm grateful that you, that you.

That are able to perceive that, that, that hospitality.

That's our mantra, right?

It is.

Tea is a vehicle through which we make a person welcome, a person accepted, a person comfortable, a person cared for.

You know, it is the most comforting beverage to say to tell somebody, hey, let me make you a cup of tea is I think one of the most beautiful expression of care for me.

You know, and so when we are looking at people to hire, when we are talking to them, when we're interviewing them, I look for that, I look for, I look for if this person is whether this person is comfortable with, with, with really putting themselves out there, you know, open palms and welcoming, you know, within open arms.

And I think that is something I grew up with.

For us, hospitality is, is very much a integral part of our culture.

And you know, it is something that, that, that gives me joy to see people happy.

And so sometimes we have young people who need to be sort of a fine, sort of fine tuned with their hospitality skills, which we are, which we do.

But that's what I'm looking for.

It's something hard to sort of quantify.

It's just how I feel in their presence.

Do I feel that they can be welcoming?

Do I feel that they can.

They have that warmth, the aura, you know, that is important for us.

Yeah.

Because you can teach them about the beverage, you can teach them about, you know, how to, how to brew, you can teach them how to describe things.

Right.

But it's hard to teach somebody how to care.

Right.

And I think that's.

If you care about treating people well, you'll care about learning the thing to describe it to them.

Like you can't teach somebody to care about people.

You can teach somebody the details about t. Yes, yes.

That is, you know, when you find Somebody like that, you know, we consider ourselves very lucky.

Yeah.

And I'll, I'll bring up, you know, one of my absolute favorite people in Rochester.

I've known for God forever from the original Joe Bean crew.

I mean, Jim Lake, when I see him at your place.

Yes, yes.

Just one of those.

Somebody who, like, embodies hospitality.

Yes, absolutely.

And somebody, and I say this with the greatest of love, is such a different.

Such a different person than you.

Right, right.

Like you're, you're understated and, you know, calm.

And Jim's big and he's animated, but he cares so hard about being there for people and doing that thing.

And the core, the core is care.

The core is love for others.

Right.

And that's, you know, that's the experience you're going to get over there.

And then you can also just sit down and taste.

Oh, taste multiple spring teas.

Taste, you know, spring, summer, fall tea from the same farm.

Or taste this.

And it's.

You're getting that care through every step of that experience.

Yes.

Jim has been with us over three years.

I think at this point we have our manager, Jane, who's been with us over seven years at the.

This.

That's amazing.

Yes.

And she actually has a monthly T 101 classes now, you know, so she is educating people.

It's something that I used to do.

She's taken over, which is, which is such a, such a wonderful thing, you know, to, to, to.

To see that.

And so we, we do have these classes, by the way.

I mean, if you want to nerd out as.

Yeah, let's start saying.

I mean, we do have these tea classes and we've been trying to come up with something more.

We have a person here in town, Lie San, whom I have known also, again, from hunger for days.

And we used to practice the Japanese tea ceremony together.

There's a group that does that.

It's a ceremonial thing that takes nearly four hours every time you sit down to do that ceremony.

So Liaison is from that group and she and I, we do a matcha class.

I think it's coming up towards the end of this month.

Okay.

I'm not sure the date it's on the.

It should be on the website.

So.

And I think there's still some places open.

So if anybody's interested to learn about matcha from a person who's trained in the Japanese tea ceremony, I think it's a great opportunity.

Then we have a gentleman with whom we do tea and chocolate.

He is a trained chocolate sommelier.

He is working towards his third or fourth degree certification currently.

And so we've been doing these, these classes.

There was a time when I would go to local libraries doing tea presentations and such and all that.

And that was fun.

The older I've gotten a little.

I find that, you know, lugging all these stuff and breakage is always a pain and you break things because you're carrying a lot of, lot of.

A lot of fragile stuff when you make these presentations out of off site, of course.

So I've been a little bit reluctant to do it anymore.

So I just invite people to come to the shop and we'll do it for them in a group if you want, private groups and all that.

So yeah, and you can find, find the [email protected] you go to shop and look at the tea classes.

There's also like, you know, you know, built little batches and things like that.

So that is, it's a fun way to learn and just be enveloped by tea for an hour or two hours and just sit and you can learn so much.

But you know, you might learn a little bit about yourself, learn a bit about your palate at the same time.

Right, right.

And the other thing that I want to say as, as Happy Earth Tea is one of our, one of our goals is to really, really give back to this community that has given us so much.

Chris, I mean you.

I see as somebody who has given us so much, you know, Right.

From your friendship to your support.

Since the time when we were in the Hungerford building.

Right.

As you said, sadly that building is no longer or the building is around, but that community is sadly scattered across the town and hopefully they are still bringing the creativity and their joy in those parts.

But Hungerford was an amazing thing that happened to me.

I had not known of this place and I was in town just maybe I had moved in a year before, maybe two.

Yeah.

What a beautiful microcosm of creativity.

Amazing.

Yeah.

And the, that you know, you could run into so many people who were just excited to create something and to try to provide something for the community.

It's that kind of thing that, you know, I think we end up talking about a lot as you know, passionate people is, you know, we might not be able to change the city even, but we can change our small c community.

We can make life better for the people that love the things that are passionate about things and being present for those that, for those that love these kind of things.

And I, I think it's, it's such a, such A blessing of an opportunity.

Absolutely.

That we have to do that.

Yeah.

I mean, Rochester has, you know, in one of my recent social media videos, I was interviewed about, you know, what T means to me and then what Rochester means to me, and I sort of put the two together.

And T has given us a home.

T has given us friends like you.

Yeah.

T has given us a community.

I have customers who bought some of the tea from the public market days still with us, and still they know everything about my family.

I know everything about their family.

And Rochester has given us a family, a home.

It's been amazing.

So for us, it's very important to give back.

And I think not in a way that just because you receive.

You know, I don't know.

I'm not saying this.

I don't want it.

I guess I don't want it to sound cliched.

No, I don't think it is.

And I. I think that's the.

It's hard because, you know, there's.

There's this, I don't know, negative.

Negative connotation for positivity right now and for being earnest.

I guess you're right.

Yes.

Right.

There's this negative connotation.

I don't.

I don't want to apologize.

Like, I struggle with positivity in so many ways in life, but when I have those feelings of positivity and earnestness, I don't want to restrain those.

I don't want to.

I don't want to say those things.

I don't want to say it halfway.

Right, Right.

And the fact that I think we can both say that because of.

Because of our passions, because of how we've, you know, been vocal about them and done the work to bring that to the people that we've gotten more back than we've put into it.

And it's not the financial.

It's the feeling of belonging somewhere that's so valuable.

It's.

I was so lost before I started this side of what I do.

Right.

And it has brought me so much joy and connection and feeling like Rochester was a place I belonged.

Right, right.

That's.

I want people to be excited about being here.

I want people to be excited about being part of the communities that you and I have, you know, found so much joy in.

And it's something that's become more and more frustrating when you know somebody like you who's even trying to, like, not be as positive.

And I know you're a positive person in many ways.

Yeah.

I always hate to see it because these are the conversations that make me happy to be here.

These are the relationships that matter.

And hey, even like other relationships that same duration that you and I have known each other.

Like you started doing non alcoholic cocktail with Chris.

Cocktail nights with Chris Clemens.

Yeah.

Like one.

How much fun to do that.

But to partner with another longtime friend that you've.

You were able to if you got there.

We used to hang out at the Hungerford.

Absolutely.

For building.

I mean this is, this is, this is going back 12 years.

Right.

Actually, you know, because we've had our brick and mortar for 10 years.

After we moved out of Hungerford we went to South Wedge.

And so this was before we.

So before 10 years.

I mean so we are.

The community is still strong.

And, and so for us to be able to, to be here, you know, I had.

I came from another part of the world.

I came from an absolutely, absolutely totally foreign, literally foreign culture.

Right.

And to, to.

For me to easily find a community here was just a blessing and I think, I think it ha.

It.

It has a lot to do with Rochester's DNA, you know, of, of.

Of just.

I don't know, it's.

It's an open, open arms here, you know.

Yeah.

As well.

You know.

So maybe that's what I'm.

I'm channeling actually more than my culture of hospitality, it's the hospitality of Rochester that I'm channeling.

Yeah.

And I think that's like the fact that you're still embracing, you know, those things now with like I love.

I went out for.

I think it was the first.

It was the first or second one of the non alcoholic cocktail nights and that you had a full place on a Friday night for something that you'd never done before.

Right.

Like how exciting is that to see, see other people getting excited about that and that they're tea based drinks.

Right.

That you're able to merge these two different worlds and bring friends in to help do that.

Like that, that enthusiasm, that camaraderie.

Yep, yep.

Like you couldn't not feel it that night.

I mean I ended up having like a half an hour conversation with your wife that night.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Because it just.

That whole environment brought so many people together to just try something fun.

Yeah.

It was very cool.

It was very cool experience for us as well.

I did not know what do we expect and but it was something that I've been wanting to do for a while.

We had done tea mocktails back in our small Place in the South Wedge.

I don't know if you remember that.

And so I was kind of, you know, it's interesting to do these creative stuff with tea, you know, sometimes just to change it up a little bit.

So it brought a whole new group of people that, that I would normally not see them.

And so it was nice to see it as a completely different kind of crowd, you know, but at the same time, again, very warm, very, very, very enthusiastic and supportive crowd.

And so that was, that was really nice to have.

Yeah.

So I think we're going to start wrapping up so I'm going to put out the plug.

So happy earthy.com you can go visit the website, check out the hours location, corner of Gregory and South Ave. Beautiful space to go hang out.

Definitely recommend you just go in if you're intrigued and you haven't dove into this.

Just go in, go in and sit at the bar and just say hey, I want, I want to try some things.

You can try a few different things at the same time.

You can try a flight and then you can go and smell different teas and learn about them.

So definitely go do that.

You know, buy something for home or hey, just go have a great beverage there and hang out and feel amazing during and after.

But I kind of want, let's, let's finish off nerding out about one tea.

Right?

Just something, you know, we were talking about the spring ones, but just bring up a tea that you've been really enjoying lately and let's, let's just talk about it for a second.

We got a couple minutes so let's just, let's one, one tea you've really been enjoying recently.

Let me think.

Because there was one such tea and now I'm having a hard time remembering it because there are, you know, like it pops up from time to time and it could be a tea that's been around for a while and now I'm like, oh, you know, like this is really speaking to me all of a sudden actually.

Yes, this is, I remember this was the, the, the Rishi heart again, the Darjeeling.

It was a Darjeeling first flush but of last year and I think we are out of it now.

We're out of it.

The fresh ones are in.

But there was something about this and this is what is about teas sometimes, you know, there is a premium to a freshness.

Drinking tea is fresh.

But there is this thing also.

After the tea has rested for a while, after some time has passed, the, the tea changes a bit and it just comes up with this.

With this amazing, surprising notes that wasn't there when you began with it, when you had it first.

And the Japanese, actually, in the Japanese tea tradition, there is this very.

It's a practice where they rest their teas.

Matcha, when we're talking about matcha, the tea is harvested in spring, but only.

Only processed in November.

So they are manufactured, it is done.

Most of the processing is done in spring, but they let it rest and then they grind it into powder in November.

They think that that period of rest is very important.

And that has me thinking about some of these other teas now.

You know that there is Pu Erh, which is meant to be aged.

That is a tea to be aged, but the other teas are not meant to be aged.

But however, I feel that.

However, I feel that these teas also, they change their character.

So the tea that you had six months ago may change and taste different now, and sometimes it.

It tastes better.

Yeah.

Which is, which is a wonderful surprise.

You know, it's something that, the.

That I don't think a maker can really do that.

It's just a confluence of lots of variables there, you know, including storage and such.

So when that happens, it's like, whoa, you know, like.

And so my wife, we were drinking this tea and then she was, I think a couple of days later, she's like, can you make that tea?

Can you do that to you again?

And we tried it, and I tried it many different ways, and it didn't do that.

So we caught it just at that window, that small, narrow, you know, it's like a meteor going through, across the sky.

And we saw it and that was it.

And you live for that now.

That is an experience that will live with me for a while.

And I love that about it.

Nothing needs to be permanent.

We're not here to be forever.

Right.

As much as these experiences are also, and perhaps they're precious only because we know it's so fleeting and we caught it right then.

And that, like, the youngness isn't the virtue always, that it's like, hey, enjoying those moments, both in delightful food and beverage that are fleeting, that are, you know, fundamentally of a time absolutely at a place with the people that you're with and try to delight in those.

Like, really delight in those experiences, because separating them out, yes, you can analytically do it, but experience is the confluence of all of those things at the same time.

And don't, don't forget those experiences, because they do matter.

Those are the things that color Everything that we do.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that's one of the reasons why I hate to lay down rules about.

About food.

Yeah.

Is because there's so many variables.

Right.

And you just don't know when that.

That you will hit that sort of magic combination.

And a lot of it sometimes is out of your hands, too.

Yeah.

Well, if you want to raise your chances of having a magical experience, go to Happy Earth Tea.

Hang out, drink some great beverages.

What's the address again?

Near 696-South Ave.

It is in the corner of Gregory and South.

And you're open.

What's the general hours?

And obviously you can check it out on, you know, Google Maps and on the website.

Of course.

Yes.

It's.

We are open Tuesday through Sunday.

Tuesday through Saturday it's 10 to 6.

And on Sundays it's 10 to 4.

Mondays we take some rest.

Well, Neerush, thank you so much for coming over.

After so many years of knowing you, let's not make it this far again.

Let's.

We'll do a tasting next time.

Maybe we'll bring somebody else over and we'll talk about some specifics.

We'll have a great time.

So thank you so much for coming over.

Want everybody to check out some of the other new shows on the Lunchadore podcast network.

We have Rob Bell from on behind the Glass starting on with Plants and Beats.

Rod makes lo fi music and talks about plants.

Also with real conversations with his friends about relationships and how we all act as adults and all the challenges and talking about it through the lens of Plants.

It's amazing.

I was so thrilled to be the first guest on the relaunch of the show.

And the two that we've done so far, three have been just unbelievable.

They're phenomenal and I'm really excited for reader's advisory, our book podcast that's going to be coming out soon with four different librarians from around Rochester, Rochester's book club in podcast form.

So thank you so much for listening.

We'll be back more.

Be back next time with more Food About Town.

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