🍵 About

The Tea Stand is a community initiative and creative endeavor which serves free tea for all: from strangers in public parks to neighbors at community events.

Sharing tea with our neighbors is how we create opportunities for stillness & trust in a world that could use a lot more of both. We cultivate spaces which are free from distraction, commodification, and judgement, and are thus welcoming to all.

At The Tea Stand, neighbors come together to share space, exchange stories & resources, and feel more connected to themselves and those around them.

The evolution of The Tea Stand, since its inception and in its future, is guided by our community. All of the tea we serve is donated by our neighbors, the locations of our events are voted on by our supporters, and strangers we meet in the park often become collaborators and friends.

We work with local artists, mutual aid groups, and organizations which put people over profit. Frequent collaborators include Taylor Maude Love, a full-spectrum doula and healer; Unfound, a trans-owned business crafting foraged herbal goods; and Riders4Rights, a Black-led mutual aid group hosting monthly food & clothing distributions.

By supporting and partnering with radical creatives and organizers, we seek to collectively work toward a future shaped by love & trust.

The Tea Stand's original & fundamental format is, quite literally, a tea stand. We set up a small table in public parks and offer free tea to passersby. There is no agenda, no payment, just free tea & open air. We do this most Sundays, usually in Maria Hernandez Park (Bushwick) or Herbert von King Park (BedStuy). You can learn more about "Popups" here.

Beyond serving free tea in parks, we regularly serve free at local food distributions (Distros), co-host an event series featuring free tea and live DJ sets (Steeped in Sound), and organize small-group, guided conversations over tea (Tea Talks). All of our events share the same values: stillness, trust, and sustainability.

All together, we're biking (our exclusive form of transport) around Brooklyn serving tea an average of 8 days every month, year-round, always ready to embrace the elements and seasonal change.

The Tea Stand is led by Miles, who moved to Brooklyn in 2022 and left his job in biotech in search of something more creative & community-oriented. Inspired by his travels in SWANA countries – where teahouses are ubiquitous venues for community conversation – he decided to set up a small table in his local park and offer free tea to strangers. You can read Miles' privilege statement here.

18 months later, after serving a few thousand cups of free tea and feeling called to continue, we launched our membership program with the goal of financially sustaining The Tea Stand. Our neighbors & comrades make monthly donations to support this project, and in return, we offer them a variety of perks, like issues of our zine bōcha, seasonal Tea Boxes, discounts at local tea shops, and more. We designed the membership program with a focus on reciprocity, autonomy, and sustainable living.

We hope to continue this work for as long as we're able – physically, financially, spiritually – with the broader mission of cultivating community & trust around Brooklyn and beyond.

The Tea Stand is an introduction to tea culture and herbalism, a third place for community members, an invitation to be still, a gateway for mutual aid work, an exchange place for stories and resources, and a re-imagination of the future: one where local communities are valued and powerful, individuals are connected to each other and to nature, and the well-being of every person flourishes through the collective.

FREE TEA FOR ALL!

Learn more about The Tea Stand here.