West Chester’s tea temple promotes diversity and delicious drinks.
Nestled in North Church Street, Tranquilitea Temple is a small, relaxing tea shop that will turn even the most passionate tea hater into a tea drinker. Here’s why you should stop by.
Number Three: The Atmosphere
When you walk in, you can usually hear soft, meditative music floating from within the temple. On a typical day, it’s quiet — you can occasionally hear the murmurs of other customers’ conversations, but it’s not a loud shop. It’s a relaxing atmosphere for you to do anything from simply drinking your tea, playing on one of their many available chess boards, or chatting with your friends or with John and Tracey Stuligross, the shop’s owners, who are always super cheerful and happy to talk with you.
Number Two: The Diversity
Tranquilitea Temple recently hosted its Chinese New Year celebration, and had also hosted the Moon Festival in September, which engaged customers with trivia on Asian culture and the history of this holiday. So, when you stop in here, you will more often than not leaving the shop learning about Chinese culture, or at the very least, you’ll feel more relaxed. And it’s not just Chinese-themed products you’ll find here: you can also find Buddhas and Japanese snacks as well.
Number One: The Tea
Of course, number one would be their tea! Tranquilitea offers a large variety of black, herbal, white, and decaffeinated loose-leaf teas of all different origins. You pick out from a jar which loose-leaf tea you want and one of the employees will brew it in front of you, so you know it’s fresh. And every day, they have a free tea sample for you to taste in the front of the shop, and once a month, they have a selection of eight to 10 teas that are all free to taste. I recommend their Wild Blueberry Dream and Tropical Breeze black tea blends, which are fruity teas — though their Chocolate Mint black tea blend is simply amazing!
