Soft Opening Day, New Teas, and More

Dear tea friends,

It’s been a busy few months at Broken Cup Teahouse — between sourcing new spring harvest teas, keeping up with orders, and preparing the tea room, there’s been no shortage of excitement. I’ve been meaning to share an update for a while, and now there’s so much to tell — so grab a cup and buckle up!

We’ve been steadily bringing our tea room to life! All of our furniture is in, most of the lighting is installed, our staff are trained, and the menu is nearly finalized. Here are a few snapshots from our trial run a couple of weeks ago to prove it:

From the way the light falls on the tables to the curve of a teacup in your hand, every part of our design is the result of hundreds of small choices — each one thought about and set into place with intention so that the whole space feels quietly alive. While there are still a few loose ends to tie up, we’re finally ready to welcome our first guests for our Soft Opening Day!

When: Friday, August 22nd, 11 AM – 9 PM
Where: Broken Cup Teahouse, 245 Main St, 12th Floor, Cambridge 02142
Additional info: We will be donating 20% of the net proceeds from our Soft Opening Day to Doctors Without Borders, earmarked for their work in Gaza. If you’re interested in further reading, check out HONY’s recent interview series with doctors working there.

To our NuMarket crowdfunders — thank you for your patience, you’ll finally be able to start spending your credits in-person, woohoo! You will also get access to our booking for 8/22 first, 48 hours before the public announcement. I’ll be sending more details soon, so please keep an eye out.

After our soft opening day, we’ll take a little time to reflect, fine-tune, and make improvements before opening our doors full-time… stay tuned!

Over the past few months, we’ve also welcomed two new local wholesale partners! First up is Gracenote, a Boston-based coffee roastery of the highest tier. With two downtown locations and the hidden treasure that is their Listening Room, you’ll now find a rotating selection of our oolongs at all three.

Next is Darling, the coolest new cocktails + dim sum spot in Cambridge’s Central Square — basically just down the street from us! Find our teas on their menu as an NA option, as well as in the Forbidden City cocktail. ✨

And in case anyone was wondering: opening our own tea room doesn’t lessen our excitement for our wholesale partners in the slightest. We’ll continue to promote all of them with passion and pride!!! Check out the full list HERE.

I haven’t managed to send out a formal announcement yet, but some of you have already spotted our NEW 2025 spring teas in the online store! As I mentioned in the last newsletter, the colder weather in tea-growing regions this past winter has made this year’s spring teas especially good.

Here’s what’s new, so far:

• 2025 Baozhong — it’s back, and grassier, fresher, and orchid-ier than ever! If you are one of the people who’s been asking me for a punchy green oolong (you know who you are), this tea is for you.

• 2025 Spring Lily — lovely, creamy, elegant. This year’s vintage feels extra harmonized with excellent mouthfeel.

• 2025 Osmanthus Green — our house blend & roast, using Spring Lily as a base with osmanthus flowers. The osmanthus imparts a soft apricot blossom sweetness on the tea. You won’t find this one made anywhere else!

• 2025 Stone Chocolate — a perfectly dark-roasted masterpiece of a tea. Mr. Chen told me that this year’s leaves were more fire-tolerant (耐火), so the final roast is ever so slightly lighter than last year’s. He was happy with the flavor and didn’t feel the need to roast it more just to match last year’s profile. I loved hearing that — it’s a reminder of how artisanal tea-making is guided by nature as much as by skill. Unlike large-scale production, the goal is to make the best tea every year, not the same tea every year. It’s a topic I could go on about, but I’ll save it for another time…

  

Also, last call to grab some of our teas from last spring at a discount: 2024 Winter’s Dawn, 2024 Misty Valley Oolong, 2024 Spring Lily, 2024 Hummingbird’s Dream, 2024 Honey Orchid. Rather than linking them individually here, I’ll simply drop the button below:

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We recently teamed up with local artist Ciana Winston on a new merch design, and polled our Instagram followers on whether it should go on tote bags or t-shirts — I’ll be sharing the design and the results on IG soon, please keep an eye out! 😉

That’s all for now, I’ll write more soon. Thank you as always for reading and supporting!

-Yin