Tea lovers rejoice!

Published 4:00 pm Sunday, January 31, 2010

While coffee shops abound like weeds in an unattended garden, tea connoisseurs are left without a hot brew to quench their discriminating palettes.

Until now, that is.

Thanks to Deanne Partlow, who opened All The Tea & China in Astoria on Dec. 1, tea aficionados now can find a wide assortment of premium teas from around the world while sampling the latest blend, and discussing the finer points of the beverage with Partlow.

To many coast residents Partlow and her store’s name should be familiar; until recently she owned and operated a restaurant and gift shop with the same name in Ilwaco,

Wash.

She decided to trade in her apron for the role of a shopkeeper when the restaurant business no longer was fun, she said.

“Running a restaurant is a lot of work,” Partlow told Coast River Business Journal. “There’s the labor costs and it’s time intensive.”

After deciding to close the restaurant after three years in operation, she was sitting with a friend who suggested they have a tea party sometime. Partlow knew how difficult it was to find a store that sold a large selection of teas, so she decided to open a shop that sold teas exclusively.

Then, she said, it was a matter of finding somewhere that had a large enough population to support such a specialized shop. Astoria, she believes, has enough discerning palettes to support a tea shop.

And from initial indications, she seems to have tapped into an unquenched niche.

In her shop, Partlow has as many as 70 varieties of bulk tea from around the world – from standard to unique blends. She uses several suppliers so she can have a good mix of the beverage for her customers.

While she keeps standard teas regularly in stock, she tries to change the more unique blends so her customers can broaden their tea drinking experience.

“Teas are a lot like wines,” she said. “Some blends go in phases.”

Partlow, a former journalist who worked for a number of years in communications for St. Martin’s College in Lacey, Wash., knew very little about teas before deciding to get into the business. It was while attending the World Tea Expo, an annual event attended by tea experts from around the world, that she said she became immersed in all aspects of the beverage – from knowing where the best teas are grown, how teas are hand-processed and how to create special blends.

“There’s a real education involved,” she said.

All of the teas she sells are high quality and from “fair-market” suppliers; many of her selections are organic.

Although she stocks packaged teas, the majority of stock is in bulk. “That way customers don’t have to buy so much and they can try a variety of blends,” she said.

The shop, which sells a variety of fancy tea-serving sets and utensils, also features a variety of Partlow’s fresh, homemade baked goods, including scones, cupcakes and cookies.

In the future, Partlow said she hopes to hold tea tastings and other special events.

“I want to remove some of the mystique about tea,” she said.

Visitors are always welcome to just browse through her shop, while sipping a cup of one of Partlow’s blends. The tea kettle is always on.