Fall 2007

Sister Stores

Trellises ‘N Tea

When Deborah Kern opened her tearoom in Milwaukee, she chose the name Anaba because its Japanese meaning—”a little-known but pleasing space”—seemed more than appropriate. These days, though, the Anaba Tea Room and its sister store, The Garden Room, are well-known to gardeners and tea lovers alike.

A trip to England—where gardening store and tearoom combinations are commonplace—inspired Kern to merge the two businesses into one within a former auto garage that she renovated.

Traditionally, afternoon tea is served on three-tiered trays. The building’s design reflects this: a lower-tier tearoom seats up to 40 guests; the middle-tier atrium overlooks it; and the top tier includes a 40-by-40-foot rooftop garden with greenhouse where shoppers can purchase statuaries, birdbaths, trellises, benches and glazed pots. (And the greenhouse isn’t just for cultivating plants and flowers; it’s also a growing hotspot for small gatherings of 15 or fewer.)

At afternoon tea, guests will find a three-tiered tray that features scones, crumpets, assorted tea sandwiches and pastry with a pot of tea alongside. The tearoom serves more than 70 teas, all from Milwaukee-based Rishi Teas. With that many teas, education becomes a large part of the Anaba experience. “Probably the largest amount of time that you’re going to spend with people at the table is kind of dialing into what kind of tea they drink and trying to expand their knowledge of it,” says chef Gregg DesRosier.

That consumer education extends to the tea tastings co-hosted by Anaba and Rishi Teas. DesRosier says the tastings feature foods cooked with teas (a pumpkin tart with walnuts and chai caramel is a good example) and samplings of up to five teas, followed by a discussion about where the teas originate, their health benefits and what the consumer should look for in taste.

DesRosier is trying to expand his customers’ tastes, as well. “[The tearoom] started out as a classic English tearoom,” he says. “We really try and now fuse it into kind of English with a little bit of an Asian influence.” That Asian influence means that a chicken salad might be a Wasabi chicken salad, and customers can expect a bit of Thai chili mayo and Asian slaw alongside their chilled lemon shrimp.

In addition to the gardening wares sold upstairs, the tearoom has its own retail space that sells bulk tea, glassware from Germany and Hungary, glass teapots and Tokoname pots made in China in kilns that are more than 1,000 years old. “We all work together, but they’re two completely different businesses,” DesRosier says of the tea and garden rooms. “Restaurant and retail—they’re not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination. We drive a lot of people through The Garden Room that might not otherwise come, and vice versa.”

“It’s a perfect match,” Kern says. “I understand why the English do it.”