🍵 About

The Tea Stand is a community project which bikes around Brooklyn / Lenapehoking serving free tea for all: from strangers in public parks to community members at events we host.

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

At The Tea Stand, neighbors come together to share space, exchange stories & resources, and feel more connected to themselves and the life around them – human & nonhuman alike.

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For more about the why of The Tea Stand, read our Manifesto here.

Neighbors connecting at The Tea Stand during a Popup in Herbert von King Park. Photo by Noah Sai.

The Tea Stand's original & fundamental format is, quite literally, a tea stand.

At these "Popups", 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, and a blanket for visitors to sit if they so choose. We host Popups most Sundays, usually in Maria Hernandez Park (Bushwick) and Herbert von King Park (BedStuy).

Beyond serving free tea in parks, we regularly serve free tea at local food distributions (Distros), co-host an event series featuring free tea and live DJ sets (Steeped in Sound), and organize small-group conversations over tea (Tea Talks). And we're always excited to serve tea wherever people want us to – public theater performances, art markets, protests, etc.

All of our programming is free or low-cost & mostly takes place outdoors, all year-round.

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Check out our upcoming events here.

Serving free chai at Flood Sensor Aunty, a community play about climate change and chai.

The evolution of The Tea Stand, since its inception and forever after, is guided by our community.

All of the tea we serve is donated by our neighbors (we are part of a circular tea economy!), the locations of our events are voted on by our members, and strangers we meet in the park often become collaborators & supporters.

We love to collaborate with local artists, mutual aid groups, and organizations which value people over profit. For example: we host foraging workshops with local herbalist Serena Kleeman, we serve tea at the monthly food distribution organized by Black-led mutual aid group Riders4Rights, and partner with ecologically-oriented orgs like Field Meridians.

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

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For a list of people & projects we've collaborated with, check out our Resource Hub here.

Setting up for a Steeped in Sound event in Prospect Park. Photo by LEEWAY.

The Tea Stand is stewarded by Miles – a Brooklyn resident since 2022 (more about me here) – and supported by a large network of neighbors & supporters. I, Miles, use "we" pronouns when talking about The Tea Stand to honor the volunteers (join the group chat here!), collaborators, and members who make this project possible.

These "members" are a big part of the "we" of The Tea Stand – they are the people who financially & spiritually support this project & my life. None of this – the tea being free, the events being (mostly) free, the autonomy & freedom from our corporate overlords, the accountability to stay true to our principles & programming, the overwhelming sense of support needed to sustain anything – would be possible without the 100+ members actively making it so.

Our membership program is also a way for us to practice reciprocity with those who share & support our vision of a better (more connected, less fearful) world. We say thanks to our members with seasonal boxes of tea & postcards, discounts at local tea shops, locally made ceramics, and a bunch of other perks (see them all here). It's like a Patreon, but instead of (just) receiving art, you're also funding a public service. (If you'd like to argue that the creation of art is a public service in its own right, I would agree!)

If you'd like to help sustain this anti-capitalist, community-funded project – and receive some lovely perks in exchange – you can sign up here!

Our neighbor Rianne serving free tea at a food & clothing distribution hosted by Riders4Rights.

In closing...

The Tea Stand is an introduction to tea culture & herbalism, a mobile third space for our neighbors, an invitation to be still & reclaim your attention, a gateway for mutual aid work, an exchange place for stories & resources, a practice of urban intervention, guerilla social infrastructure, and an imagination of the future: one where local communities are valued & powerful, individuals are connected to each other & to nature, and the well-being of every person flourishes through the collective.

FREE TEA FOR ALL!

Have we mentioned how important Adin is to this project? He's really important.

Learn more about The Tea Stand here.