Holiday Update

It's been an incredible holiday season sharing our teas with you at Harney & Sons SoHo.  We'd like to relay a few updates for the holiday season.

During the coming weekends we will be continuing to share our flight of Holiday teas: White Christmas, Holiday & Hot Cinnamon.

Holiday Hours:

• 12/24 - Christmas Eve: 10am - 5pm
• 12/25 - Christmas Day: CLOSED
• 12/31 - New Year's Eve: 10am - 5pm
• 1/1 - New Year's Day: CLOSED

Our early bird special is still alive and well.  If you spend $20 or more in the shop before 2pm, you get a complimentary tagalong (5-sachet tin).  Also, if you join us for tea and scones in the café before 2pm, your scone plate is 50% off!

Even if you can't make it in before 2pm, we offer specials for customers using different social media apps, like Foursquare (among others).  Specials change periodically, so make sure you follow us on Twitter & Facebook for immediate updates.

Following the New Year, we will start opening an hour later on Sundays, changing our hours to 11am - 7 pm!

Happy Holidays and a great start to the New Year for you all!

Flight Of Teas! December 18th & 19th

Happy Holidays!!!! This weekend we will be presenting three of our favorite Holiday Teas: White Christmas, Holiday Tea and Hot Cinnamon Spice.
White Christmas is a white tea blended with almonds, cardamom and vanilla. This tea was blended by our Manager, Emeric Harney!  It was inspired by Holiday sweets, and is a sweet, subtle brew.
Holiday Tea is a black tea blended with citrus, almonds, clove and cinnamon. It brews a strong, tasty cup. A perfect tea for the upcoming holiday meals.Hot Cinnamon spice is a black tea with three different kinds of cinnamon, orange peels and sweet cloves. This is a very potent tea, but inherently sweet because of the cloves!

Flight of Teas: December 11 - 12!

This coming weekend the consultants are excited to present a flight of Chinese green teas from Zhejiang province.  The first is Jin Shan, a green and white curly tea with a pale liquor and a subtle sweetness of caramelized sugars.  Chun Lu, one of the stronger Chinese greens with a robust flavor of steamed asparagus.  Last, but certainly not least is Lung Ching (a.k.a Dragonwell), possibly China's most famous green.  Dried in woks, it has a sweet, smooth grassy flavor, countered by aromas of roasted nuts.  

Jin Shan is both a tea and an ancient-tea growing region.  The bushes thrive in the cool mountains that separate Zhejiang from Anhui province.  Jin Shan is located just outside a large Buddhist monastery, where the monks developed the tea for their own consumption, for tribute to the emperor and for sale to support their monastery.  These same monks may have also been responsible for introducing Japan to green tea when in the ninth century they gave Jin Shan tea to monks visiting from Japan.  Jin Shan's brew has a compelling aroma; a mixture of floral, citrus and vegetal notes, whereas the flavor tastes more of steamed artichokes.

Chun Lu is produced in a region called Thousand Islands (Qiandao Lake).  These gardens are truly spectacular because they are one of the few that are surrounded by water.  The region was a mountain range that was filled since the completion of the Xin'an River hydroelectric station, creating 1,078 large islands, with thousands of smaller ones.  Chun Lu has a dark, curly leaf and is harvested later in spring which allows the leaves to mature a bit more.  This lends itself to the teas darker, more vegetal flavors of asparagus and spinach, something a bit uncharacteristic of Chinese greens.

Lung Ching is to Chinese green teas what French Champagne is to sparkling wines: the standard against which all others are measured.  With almost no tip, it has the classic green tea qualities of steamed bok choy and toasted nuts.  Though Xi Hu, or the West Lake, has been producing tea for centuries, Lung Ching became a tribute tea during the Qing dynasty.  Lung Ching means "Dragon's Well", which refers to an old well halfway up a hill outside Hangzhou, where the tea was originally grown.

New Arrivals!!!

For those Darjeeling, Oolong and smoky tea fans out there, we received new varieties on our order this week!  Come in to enjoy some great Sungma 2nd Flush Darjeeling, a smooth, roasted fruit brew at a great price.

Also, we've received some Rou Gui Oolong, a roasted oolong from the Wuyi Cliff regions in China, as well as our Dong Ding Dark, a more traditional take on the Taiwanese rolled oolong with delicious toasty notes.  

Last, but certainly not least, we got in our Wuyi's Finest Lapsang, an exquisite take on the classic Lapsang Souchong.

Be sure to come in and give these a taste next chance you get!