by Emilienne Repak

Although Starbucks may be taking over the world, there are still those of us who are all about tea.  One of my favorite things about Boston is the cute tea cafés around the city where you can order a cup of looseleaf tea, or buy it by the ounce.  I figured that while in Paris, it might be fun to learn how Parisian culture affects the sales of my favorite beverage.  I started off by purchasing the book “Le Thé à Paris” by Christine Barbaste at a bookstore near our hotel in the Latin quarter.  From there, I traveled to tea shops in the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 8th arrondissements.  By visiting enough stores, I started to see several trends in Parisian tea shops.

1. Limited store hours.  At first, I thought I’d get a head start on my project by waking up early to go exploring before all the JSF students had to meet for our daily activities.  Sadly, I couldn’t get very far.  Each store I found that morning greeted me with dark windows and a sign stating that they would open at 11am and stay open until 6 or 7pm, with an hour or two lunch break in the mid-afternoon.  As I continued my exploration during the week, I found that most tea shops had similar hours, opening anywhere between 10 and 11am and closing between 5 and 7pm.  The Parisians sure do take the 35-hour work week seriously.

2. Parisians don’t drink tea on the go.  After finding a free afternoon, I was excited to try some of these teas at all the stores I was visiting.  However, I quickly realized that the Starbucks disposable mug had not yet infiltrated the tea-drinking society.  Given the tea shop hours and the lack of disposable cups, it became clear that people here don’t just grab a tea on their way in to work.  The people in this city never seemed overly stressed about grabbing some caffeine and making it into the office on time.

3. Tea shops are often exclusively for the sale of tea leaves or the sale of beverages. I tried asking several clerks at the first few shops I visited if I could buy a drink of tea to go (“à emporter”).  If I wasn’t given a confused look, I was pointed to a nearby table where I might sit and place an order.  At many tea shops, you couldn’t purchase drinks at all!  In the shops where tea was sold, it was always in a separate café area where customers were expected to be seated and place an order.  The Parisian culture of sitting and talking over food and drink is still alive and well.

4. There is no shortage of tea salons in Paris.  During the first few days in Paris, I tried taking a photo each time I saw a restaurant which advertised itself also as a “Salon de thé.”  I stopped that once I realized how abundant these restaurants were. 

Although most restaurants will serve you bagged tea, the bags are filled with tea leaves, not the powder you see in the US.  The quality of the teas, like most food and drink in Paris, was top-notch.  There are lots of Parisian cafés and restaurants which double as tea salons, leading me to conclude that tea is still a fairly popular drink in Paris.  In general, I found it much easier to find and purchase good quality tea in Paris than in major US cities, just another reason why I loved the city of lights.