Albuquerque's New Mexico Tea Bar brews up tea and conversation during their weekend afternoon tea service. Owner David R. Edwards recommends selecting a flavorful loose-leaf tea to wow your guests at your own book-club circle. Seen here (clockwise) Ying Ming Tunnan, Blueberry Rooibos, and Sandía Spice Black Tea.

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” —C.S. Lewis

Wealthy New Mexico arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan was known for hosting influential and informal gatherings of American and European artists, intellectuals, and writers at her charming home in Taos—a place described in the writings of salon attendee and novelist D. H. Lawrence. I can just imagine the thoughtful conversation circulating among such salon members as painter Georgia O’Keeffe, photographer Ansel Adams, poet Robinson Jeffers, and novelist Willa Cather. Now, I like to picture 21st-century ideas exchanged over tea and light fare in a welcoming New Mexican home.

In fact, I remember just such a time, when great friends of mine opened their house-gallery, in the lovely Victorian town of Silver City, for book-club gatherings and poetry readings. Listening to poems read aloud by Silver City poet and literary critic Sandy McKinney, author of Body Grief (The Bromley Bookstore, 2003), and Tom McCoy, author of Days Like These: A Gift for the Spirit (High Sierra Books, 2004), while delighting in tea and cookies, turned into quite the satisfying experience. It was a gift for the spirit; I cherish such days shared with inspiring local talent.

To create your own gathering with casual elegance, good food, and warm conversation, you must first decide if you want to serve afternoon tea or high tea. “A common misconception equates high tea with ‘fancy’ or ‘highbrow,’” says tea devotee David R. Edwards, owner of the New Mexico Tea Company and Tea Bar, in downtown Albuquerque. In the 18th century, explains Edwards, Anna Russell, the Duchess of Bedford, began the tradition of afternoon tea when she invited friends for what Americans think of as a late-afternoon snack. “Offerings included small sandwiches, sweets, tea, and lots of chatting,” Edwards explains. “High tea was actually what we in America call dinner, served at a dining-room table. Meats, cheeses, and other filling dishes accompanied ale and, perhaps, a cup of tea.”

In the relaxed ambiance of the New Mexico Tea Bar, enticing conversation and tea brew all weekend long, each Friday through Sunday. This modern afternoon tea includes scones baked from scratch and served with clotted cream and preserves; homemade blueberry muffins; and seasonal fruit sprinkled with nuts. “We also include madeleines and bite-size Italian-chocolate tea cakes with every tea-bar plate,” Edwards says. “The most popular item is our Tea for Two [including all of the above and a large pot of tea] for $10, served upstairs in our relaxing loft space, or [on our] cozy back patio on warmer New Mexico days.”

The small tearoom offers more than 150 varieties of tea from around the world—enough to satisfy any taste. Edwards also carries a selection of tisanes, or herbal teas, such as the naturally caffeine-free Godiva Rooibos (pronounced ROY-bos). At this tasteful stop, I find the perfect tea for my mother: several ounces of Rosie Earl Grey, a rich black tea with a hint of rose petals to invigorate the spirit and infuse her Southwestern home with floral notes. She’ll love it—and, knowing her, she’ll brew a pot for company.

I thoroughly enjoy my steaming cup of Assam Full Leaf, a splendid black tea. Best of all, tea’s healing antioxidants thrill my being to the bone. At home, I add agave nectar, a delicious natural sweetener.

A tea experience can impart casual elegance without all the fluff. “For an informal afternoon tea served at a book club, I recommend letting the guests serve themselves from a buffet table,” advises Edwards. Arrange your food items, book-themed decorations, and flowers on a large table with a tablecloth. To add an elegant touch, use a three-tiered serving tray for scones and sandwiches. Finally, the table(s) should be prearranged with utensils, cups and saucers, napkins, and condiments.

Flavorful loose-leaf tea brewed to perfection sets the tone of a tea party. “It’s hard to go wrong when using fresh loose-leaf tea,” emphasizes Edwards. “Your guests will be wowed by the flavor, whatever it is.” Tailor the tea to the experience you want to convey and get a feel for what your guests expect: Will they desire fruity teas, tea with milk and sugar, with lemon and honey, or plain tea? To heighten the experience, use good water. According to Edwards, “Filtered spring water is best. Never use distilled water, as it will give your tea a flat taste.”

Edwards, who has mastered the fine art of brewing and serving tea, offers a hassle-free serving strategy for your book-club gathering: Once your guests are seated, present each table with tea in a pot. If you have a small group, carefully pour each guest’s cupful. If there’s more than one table, allow the head of the table to serve the tea. “It’s important for the host’s style to come through,” Edwards hints, “and, therefore, many of the technicalities of how things are done should be a reflection of the host. The point of all this is the guests’ enjoyment . . . that is paramount!”

After turning in this article, Wendy Sue Gist retired to a cozy corner of her yurt with a hot cup of tea and a good book.

The New Mexico Tea Company Might be the answer to your pesky relatives-who-have-everything shopping problem. Jam-packed with more then 100 unusual teas and tisanes, it also has a delightful cache of teapots, cup, and clever infusers. For the perfect stocking-stuffer, scoop up the origami "fortune cookies," filled with blooming tea and good news.

ATM: How did you get involved in the tea industry?
Edwards: I really wanted to work for myself. At the same time, my motherdecided she wanted to open a card shop, and she wanted me to do thebusiness side of it, I thought that a card shop wasn't unique enough,so the idea of tea came about. I always liked tea and didn't really knowmuch about it, except that I liked it.

ATM: What’s your mission?
Edwards: To educate people about tea, and provide something that'shard for people to get here. Tea doesn't grow in the United States atall, especially not commercially, so all the tea comes from China, India,Japan, Africa, South Africa, and places like that. Before, a lot of peoplewould have to order their tea online, and now I can satisfy that need.

ATM: So what flavors do you offer?
Edwards: With flavors of tea there's an innite amount that you canhave: Earl Grey with black tea, Earl Grey with green tea, Earl Grey withwhite tea. We don't have every combination, but we have the four maintypes of tea: black tea, white tea, green tea, and oolong. They all comefrom the same plant. They are the true teas. Then we have our selectionof herbal teas as well, the rooibos, and the Chamomile and spearmint,and all those sorts of things.

ATM: What are the benefits of drinking tea?
Edwards: One is that you can come at it from so many different angles.Some people get into the spiritual side of drinking tea, and others getinto the health benets. Other people just drink tea because the caffeine helps them wake up in the morning. Others like the ceremony of it- the English-Victorian style with the scones and all of that; dressing up and tea parties. It's the most consumed beverage, after water, in the world.

ATM: What's the biggest myth surrounding tea?
Edwards: People think that a box of tea is all there is, when there's awhole world of teas out there. Another misconception is that tea is justfor women or tea parries, or for being fancy- and there is that aspect, butthere's also the construction worker that drinks black tea, or thereghter.

ATM: What prompted the idea of adding the cafe to the store?
Edwards: Since day one, people have asked, "Do you serve tea in yourlittle back patio?" And, nally, I've gured out a way to do it. We havean employee now, so that makes it feasible. The tea store has been retailfor two and a half years, and it will always be the heart of it- and theservice will be the addition. I'd like to think that the store is an elegantexperience, my goal is to make it elegant for anyone to enjoy.

ATM: What’s your favorite part about what you do?
Edwards: I'm fascinated with the business side of tea. I enjoy orderingthe teas, selecting which teas we should have, talking to people abouttheir tea, selling the tea. Even more than just drinking tea- specicallyin the store- what's so great is we have customers who come in and theyreally don't like tea. Once they realize what tea is, then they get excitedabout it. Introducing someone who's enthusiastic to the world of tea isprobably the most enjoyable.

ATM: What's the proper way to steep tea?
Edwards: There's a way that it is traditionally done, and then the waypeople like to do it. Some people like more bitterness, some like asmooth tea. As long as you learn the ground rules, then you can controlsteeping the cup of tea you want. So, green tea: you use less-than-boilingwater. Black tea: you use boiling water. The water temperature is the mostimportant thing, and the thing that people most often get wrong. A lotof people will say they don't like green tea because it tastes too bitter.One of the reasons that it's so bitter is because of the water temperatureis too high. If you use the proper water temperature, then you can steepit the whole time, which is about two minutes. There are two factors tocontrolling the bitterness: one is the water temperature, and the secondis time. If either of those are wrong, then you'll get a cup of tea thatdoesn't taste great.

ATM: So what tea pleases your palate?
Edwards: The tea that I drink the most of is Earl Grey with milk andsugar. In the summer, it's this blood orange iced tea, which is a rooibos,so it's caffeine free. You can drink as much of it as you want withoutgetting dehydrated and without staying up all night.

David Edwards, who owns New Mexico Tea Company with his mother Dianne Edenfi eld, opened the doors two years ago to purvey fi ne loose teas (no by the cup sales). Edwards holds free Friday evening tastings limited to six people.

Like a conversation, tastings take on the character of the participants. Some want to know the basics, others focus on the health benefi ts, some want the history. “I offer eight teas, a pure and a fl avored variety of each of the four kinds of tea,” Edwards says. “Often, people are intimidated by the idea of a tasting. But this is a good way for someone to expand their palate or to simply get an overview. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like some type of tea.

Edwards also schedules a Chinese tea class/ceremony taught by a Chinese tea instructor named Yatoe. Participants learn the Gongfu style of preparing and brewing traditional Chinese teas for $35 per person.

New Mexico Tea Company’s tiny loft space is a study in elegant design and carries a beautiful selection of Asian teapots and cups.

David Edwards knows the power of "free." As in: Tall glasses of fresh-brewed iced tea given away at the Downtown Grower’s Market. A free ounce of bulk tea with each issue when you sign up for a monthly tea newsletter. A tea tasting of eight different brews at no charge that you can attend with as many as five friends. And a no-subscription online resource for everything-you’ve-always-wanted-to-know about anything that has to do with tea.

Those are just a few of the methods Edwards, an enterprising 27-year-old with a background in graphics design and a knack for the entrepreneurial, has employed to promote the New Mexico Tea Co., a two-year-old bulk tea business he opened with his mother, Dianne Edenfield, in the fall of 2006.

“I love to give stuff away,” says Edwards, who previously worked for Home Depot and as a cruise ship activities director, before realizing his business acumen was going to waste working for others. “People’s faces light up. It creates an excitement around the name, whether they end up coming in to the store or not.”

Last night the gaijin girls (smart, adventurous ages 8 and 12) and I attended our first tea tasting together. The New Mexico Tea Company is located on the northeast corner of Mountain and 12th. The owner, David, hosts these weekly tastings, which take about an hour and a half, and are free. You call him to sign up in advance; there's only 6 spaces at each. The summary: you'll have a good time and get some education in a wholly snob-free environment.

Product
We tasted several teas--white, flavored white, green, flavored green, oolongs, smoked and blacks, as well as rooibos (not really tea). In addition we experienced the difference between different steepings of the same teas. The choices were diverse and sometimes challenging, and really gave a good cross-section of the possibilities out there. I feel David's prices are reasonable; he only sells bulk tea, priced by the ounce.

David gently busts some myths about the various teas. Many people know that regardless of variety (green, white, whatever), tea comes from only one plant. David explains the difference in processing between the varieties and goes into some of the more exotic means of preparing tea--for example, some jasmine teas are made by placing a tea leaf into a jasmine flower, letting the flower close overnight, and then removing the tea leaf the next morning. Who knew? He also handles questions about caffeine adroitly: "If you are really worried about caffeine content between the different teas," he suggests, "look for something else to drink." Different caffeine levels can be achieved by rinsing the leaves after their first steeping, he explains. And the taste difference between the different steepings (we went to four on a ginseng oolong!) is subtle, nuanced and really interesting.

Environment
It's very friendly and relaxed. Sometimes in life, you meet people who feel that, as experts in their field, it's their job to demonstrate their superior education and then gently guide your tastes in the proper direction. I can't stand that. David approaches the tea as a shared experience that a person should have some fun with. As with wine, my favorite approach is 'try what you want to, explore what you like, and don't go back to what you don't like.' This fits perfectly with the vibe at these tastings.

So What the Hell does ridin Know About Tea?
More than the average bear, actually. Before becoming unemployed and wretchedly poor, I used to work for Yogi Tea in Marketing, and I was exposed (sometimes reluctantly) to several tastings a week. New products and reformulations all had to come through my department for feedback. Staff at the tastings always included hardcore types like the brand manager and the director of marketing--Sikhs who had drunk some tea in their time, let me tell you. I thoroughly enjoyed the tasting at New Mexico Tea and I heartily recommend it! It would make a fun date, including a first date. There really wasn't anything about it I didn't like, and you guys know I can be a bit...um...discerning at times. You'll have fun, you'll learn a thing or two (I did), and you'll expand your taste buds' consciousness. Without busting your wallet's chakras.