Oct 1, 2025 6 min read

👻 October Newsletter

We made it! September – which was perhaps the busiest month of my life – is over. October will bring more help from community members and more time in nature. Hallelujah!

Today's newsletter topics:

🤲 Help!
⛰️ Tea in the Mountains

But first, our October calendar:

Upcoming events:

⛰️ Tea Retreat (more info below)
Oct 17-19 – Adirondacks, NY

🗓️

You can view all upcoming events on our calendar here.

Volunteer opportunities:

🥬 Distro with Riders4Rights
Oct 11 – BedStuy – 10:30am

💬

To sign up to volunteer, join our volunteer group chat here.

🤲 Help!

When people ask how they can support The Tea Stand, we usually offer 3 ways: donate tea, donate money, and/or donate time.

We're feeling pretty good about those first two resources: our tea inventory is looking solid and we're closing in on our goal to reach $1,000 in monthly donations via our membership program. Thank you to everyone who has supported The Tea Stand in these ways!

But when it comes to time... we could use more of it.

With each season, there are more Tea Boxes to ship (a great problem to have), more community performances to serve chai at (FSA forever!), more opportunities to work with local artists & herbalists & senior centers & community gardens and the innumerable beautiful people in this city.

It's a lot of work, and while I'm certainly not doing it all alone, I do see two major opportunities to get people like YOU more involved in running The Tea Stand.

**Thank you to people like** **Parker** **(right) who have donated tea and volunteered their time to support The Tea Stand!**

First, we made a new group chat for sharing volunteer opportunities (join here!). Goodbye sporadic IG stories, farewell online forms. From now on, we'll be sharing all our volunteer opportunities via this WhatsApp group chat.

We expect to share anywhere from 2-5 volunteer opportunities a month, with roles like: helping serve tea, prepping Tea Boxes, photographing events, bagging tea, leading gongfucha sessions, creating graphics, running local errands, etc.

We hope this group chat makes volunteering with The Tea Stand an easier, smoother experience. If you have any ideas or suggestions related to this change, please let us know!

**Rianne** **volunteering at a Distro last year.**

Second, we want to create more opportunities for people to "take over" The Tea Stand. Taking over The Tea Stand is a step beyond volunteering – you're essentially hosting a Tea Stand event all on your own (or with a friend).

Takeovers consist of transporting the equipment (via bike), setting up The Tea Stand, serving tea to strangers, and then packing everything up and bringing it back to storage. It's a lot of work!

If you're interested, fill out this interest form and we'll reach out when we're looking for someone to take over. Down the road, we hope to empower people to host a takeover whenever (and wherever) they feel like it.

We already have 3 takeovers planned in October – thanks to Nick, Val, Mateo, and Ziggy for keeping The Tea Stand running while I'm upstate (more on that below). And a big thank you to our friend JW who is providing a storage space for The Tea Stand's equipment, making all of this possible!

**Val** **took over The Tea Stand back in April as part of Perpetual Brew and will be back at it on October 5th in HVK! And the same applies to** **Nick**!

In 2025 alone, we've served close to 4,000 cups of free tea at over 100 events. That's incredible! And it's only possible thanks to all of the tea, money, and energy you've shared with us. (This is why we use "we" pronouns, btw.)

With your continued support – whether that means sharing tea, funds, or time – we can continue to serve free tea in public parks, host free monthly events, collaborate with local artists, and create natural spaces for connection.

Once more: you can join our volunteer WhatsApp chat here and/or indicate your interest in taking over The Tea Stand here.

Thank you all so much 🧡

⛰️ Tea in the Mountains

I'm spending all of October outside of NYC, mostly in upstate New York. Specifically, I'll be working (and playing) at my family's off-grid retreat called Dacks Yurt Collective!

The yurt is located in the Adirondack Mountains (about 5 hours north of NYC) and currently consists of two yurts (photo below) which we built with the help of our extended community. The idea behind Dacks Yurt Collective is to provide a space where folks can connect with nature, learn building skills, and experience solitude without needing to spend money. (Sound familiar?)

Up until now, The Tea Stand and the Dacks Yurt Collective have been completely separate projects, but it's about time they joined forces...

I'm hosting a lil "tea retreat" at the Dacks Yurt Collective the weekend of October 17th! Picture this: a group of 5 of us, hanging out in a cozy yurt, drinking a ton of tea, going on a hike or two, and reading by the fireplace.

The yurt is halfway between glamping and "normal" camping. It's quite spacious with lots of soft seating, comfortable beds, and a wood burning stove. There is no electricity (but we do have solar-powered string lights), there is no running water (but we do have an outhouse), and there is no kitchen (but we've got a camping stove and plenty of cookware).

Here's a rough schedule for the weekend:

Friday, Oct 17: we'll depart from Beacon, NY on Friday around 1pm. I'll pick everyone up from the MetroNorth train station and we should arrive at the yurt around 5pm.
Saturday, Oct 18: we'll all day to relax, brew plenty of tea, and do some group activities (e.g. hike, meditate).
Sunday, Oct 19: we'll depart from the yurt around 11am and arrive back in Beacon, NY around 3pm. You could be back in NYC as early as 5pm!

Because this is my first time doing something like this, there is no charge to participate, though we will be splitting costs like food and gas, which I expect to come out to around $100 per person for the entire weekend. The tea is on me (though feel free to bring your own, too)!

Two friends have already claimed spots, meaning there are only two open spots remaining. If you'd like to join, please reply to this email!

Assuming things go well, there will be more events like this in the future :)

**The interior of the yurt (when 15 people slept inside it during the 2024 solar eclipse).**

While we're on the topic, I do have one other yurt-related opportunity to share with you all. From October 3rd thru October 9th, a group of family and friends will be up at Dacks Yurt Collective for a community building session, or "dugnad".

Together, we'll be building a large wood shed, planting some trees, and doing some maintenance work around the retreat. It's a great way to learn (and share) some handy skills, meet new people, and experience the amazing Adirondack region of New York.

If you're interested in joining for the build session at any point between October 3rd and October 9th, reply to this email! We're also able to offer financial assistance for things like transportation :)

To be clear, this community build session is completely separate from the "tea retreat" (and The Tea Stand in general).

**Laying the floor for the yurt two years ago.**

Well, now you know about the Dacks Yurt Collective. Feel free to follow along via the Instagram (my dad runs the account).

Reach out if you're interested in joining for the tea retreat, the community build session, or just generally getting involved with yurt-related activities :)

That's all for now! Thanks to...

Aubrey (from Three Legged Cat) & Juno for donating tea.

Mo, Zoë, Tanner, Tim, Arlene, Andrea, and Jen for becoming members.

You, for reading! Hope to see you at one of our October events (calendar here).

Keep Steeping,
Miles 🍵