I was driving through L.A. the other day and noticed a brightly colored building with the words Tea Bar, Market and Cafe on it. Three words that I love! I drove around the block to park and what I discovered was T Salon, a beautiful store and cafe completely devoted to Tea. I personally have not seen this much tea in one place since visiting the Mariage Freres tea house in Paris. One wall of T Salon is completely devoted to various blends of tea stored in large tins. They were categorized by type of tea-black tea, green tea, organic, etc.

The young woman who approached me in the market was very knowledgeable, and by asking me various questions, she was able to pull down from the wall three blends for me to experience. With tea, for myself, it’s all about aroma. I ended up choosing a specialty blended Black Tea called “Whispering Heaven”. This tea contains a black rose congou base infused with grapefruit and hibiscus notes. It was very aromatic and delicious.

It all sounds kind of like the blending of perfume and it’s no wonder. The first T Salon, located in the Chelsea Market in New York, was founded in 1992 by Miriam Nouvalle, who many years ago worked as a “nose” in the perfume industry. After leaving that business and moving to Europe and Asia, Miriam was able to use her experience and knowledge to manifest her tea vision. The Los Angeles stored opened about seven months ago.

Both stores have an interesting calendar of events. They also offer a huge selection of tea accessories, iced teas on tap and fresh seasonal foods prepared in their cafe, some made with tea as an ingredient!

Miriam has created an environmentally responsible business that is fun to shop in and beautiful as well. The T Salon’s comprehensive web site gives all the details of what they do to leave as little footprint as possible. I really enjoyed my visit to the Los Angeles location! You can find T Salon at 7111 Melrose Ave..