The Tea Box

693 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY - (212) 350-0180

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Posted By Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle on 1/31/2010 9:11:00 AM

Takashimaya in New York City is the sole US outpost for the upscale Japanese chain. Really quite small as NYC department stores go, the carefully chosen items are spread out vertically between six gallery-like floors. There are usually more salespeople ready to help you than there are customers shopping.

An unlikely environment in which to find Roadfood. Yet, when that road is New York's Fifth Avenue, most of the traveling will be on foot, trekking from store to store, dodging cabs at intersections while weighted down with boxes and shopping bags. It's right about mid-afternoon that the intrepid New York shopper will be looking for a chance to relax and recharge. Enter Takashimaya's basement-level Tea Box to the rescue.

On exiting the elevator into the retail tea shop in front of the tea room, the first thing that hits you is (at least to our senses) the incongruous aroma of fresh-roasted coffee. Peruse the vast selection of teas, both prepackaged and blended to order, and some of the most beautiful jewel-like packaged cookies and sweets we've ever seen. Many of the items you see out here will be available in the tea room proper.

As you are shown to your table in The Tea Box, you'll instantly begin to sense the calming influence of the gentle plucking of Japanese music in the background, the tans and greys and beiges of the furnishings, and of the fabrics overhead, and the subdued lighting.

Lunches of salads and sandwiches and bento boxes are popular, but it's the tea service that grabs us. The East-West Afternoon Tea brings, in addition to your pot of tea, finger sandwiches, cookies, pastries and fresh fruit. For those of lesser appetite, a la carte selections include sorbets and ice creams, chocolate-covered ginger, butter cookies, creme brulee flavored with green tea, and something they call vegetable "cookies." The simple iced tea is superb, served with a side pitcher of what our waitress referred to as "sugar water."

The tea menu includes dozens of varieties of green, black, flavored, and herbal teas, a toasted buckwheat "tea", and there's even coffee imported from Japan. Teas are served in rustically beautiful pots, and your cup and saucer is festooned with a rock candy stirrer.

A pot of tea, some delicate Yoku Moku butter cookies, and a little time secluded from the outdoor bustle, and you'll be ready to face another round of the finest shopping New York has to offer.

Scorecard

Overall: One of the Best - Worth a Trip

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"Each teacup comes with a crystallized sugar stirrer. The tea is aromatic and of gorgeous color."
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle

"Iced tea comes in regular and mango versions. This glass of regular iced tea was well-nigh perfect. Alongside came a pitcher of simple syrup. When we're not in the South, we generally drink our iced tea unsweetened, but the tea with syrup was wonderfully clean, rounded, and focused."
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle

"Some of the butter cookies are by the Japanese upmarket cookie maker, Yoku Moku. The two at the top left are by Yoku Moku; we don't know about the third."
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle

"While the green tea lends the creme brulee a mossy, murky hue, the flavor is only slightly altered from straight creme brulee."
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle

"We tried hard not to disturb the other patrons enjoying their tea, so this was the best we could do for an interior view. This is taken from just outside the entrance."
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle