Spices & Tease, Grand Central Market, New York

Spices and Tease

Working in Midtown so close to tourist traps like Times Square and Grand Central Station can be both a blessing and a curse. Some pros include great scenery, Bryant Park in the summer, and great food everywhere. Cons include tourists, traffic, crowds, prices, and did I mention tourists?

Grand Central Station is one of the most beautiful buildings in New York, and easily one of the busiest traffic hubs in the city as well. The Station is home to more than just train connections and commuter arteries but shopping, food, great photo ops and quirky art exhibits.

Spices and Tease is one of the many vendors that call the Grand Central Market home – if you’re ever in NY, I definitely recommend taking a walk through here for more than just the tea but the entire character. It’s a bazzar set-up, long and hall-like with multiple independent shops that sell everything from basic to slightly gourmet you could possibly desire.

This was my second stop on my New York tea-tour trip and I was hunting for a very specific tea – vanilla hazelnut rooibos – that a good friend of mine fell in love with. Unfortunately, this specific blend was not available – a sore disappointment, but limited run or seasonal blends are nothing new in the tea world.

Spices and Tease has a charming set-up, with their teas on one side and their spices on the other. They sell their tea in square tins that vary in size with set prices.

I settled with raspberry grapefruit white and cinnamon vanilla lemon maté, both of which are wonderfully tasty. Their small tins are set at 7 bucks a pop, a flat rate for any blend and the tea leaves are what I’d consider above average in quality. That makes Spices and Tease one of the best bang-for-your-buck tea stops in New York, and excellently located, to boot.

I’ve yet to buy spices from them, actually, or any of their other products (flavored sugar is, interestingly, the other edible they offer.) But you can bet it’s on my bucket list for my next go!

Spices & Tease – Grand Central, New York • Yelp
Loose Tea By Volume • Spices • Sugar