Tea Dealers & Ceramics, the tea retailer and teaware shop out of Alphabet City, opened in July at 90 Hudson in a beautiful space just across from Harrison. Really, it’s worth walking in even if you don’t care about tea. It will lower your heart rate.

Husband and wife team Stefen Ramirez and Shin Won Yoon started the company in 2015. He is the tea master, and researches and sources teas from all over the world. She is the designer of the store but more importantly, an artist and ceramicist — her one-of-a-kind vessels are just remarkable.

The wall of teas offers single-origin, non-flavored teas, and the store has all kinds of beautiful ways to serve it — along with special ceramics and vessels for sake. And there’s a Tribeca symbiosis that I love: Stefen has designed the tea program at Interlude, Jungsik and Chambers.

The teaware is not just ceramic, and in fact, the pewter caught our eye immediately. There’s stoneware, porcelain, copper, iron, glass, bamboo. And they have a beautiful room in the back for hosting classes, exhibits and tea ceremonies. See the schedule here. 

“This new location offers us the space to grow our business for the next 10 years,” Stefen told me when they took the space in May. “We are very excited to be part of this neighborhood after seven years in the East Village and hope to bring some respite from the everyday hustle of the city in our calm space with extraordinary teas and exquisite ceramics found only in very few places in the world.”

Stefen is a professional tea specialist and traditional tea ceremony practitioner of the Urasenke school (one of the main schools of Japanese tea ceremony) and has more than 15 years’ experience in owning and managing retail stores and restaurants. He sources the teas from small farmers in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and India — “a unique and luxurious selection.” His interest started 20 years ago with a chance weekend job at a tea conglomerate in Midtown, which he thought would be an easy gig: “Then they handed me a 500-page manual,” he said. He passed the tests required, and the company eventually sent him to Japan to source teas.

“Eventually I wanted to expand beyond Japan so I started travelling the world for tea,” he said. “I started in my late 20s and even now I am just scratching the surface.”

Tea Dealers & Ceramics
90 Hudson | Harrison & Worth
Monday to Saturday, noon to 7p
212.401.0718
info@tea-dealers.com