Smith Teamaker Is Opening Its First Café With Food in Northwest Portland

After this weekend’s ribbon cutting, the first 100 customers will get a free commemorative tin of tea.

Smith Teamaker The “Smith Bowl” (Sencha tea infused quinoa, kale, apples, tea plumped raisins, spiced sweet potato, chai walnuts, cider vinaigrette); photo by Lindsay Strannigan courtesy of Smith Teamaker.

After more than a decade in business, Smith Teamaker is making its first foray into food service. The new experience, however, is built on a theme that will tie it to the company’s signature beverage: plants.

Smith Teamaker will host a ribbon cutting at 8:45 am Saturday, May 29, at 500 NW 23rd Ave., where its new cafe is located on the ground floor of a newly constructed building. There you will find customer-favorite teas, like the Meadow Latte and Black Lavender Latte, along with new offerings the company continues to develop, including black and herbal tea lattes pulled from an espresso machine. Smith Teamaker says that method results in a fuller-bodied, concentrated product without the long steep time.

Joining those drinks is a plant-based menu developed by Karl Holl, former chef-farmer-forager at Park Avenue Fine Wines in downtown Portland. Now as the culinary director at Smith Teamaker, he will find inspiration for new flavors in the company’s tea lab, which will provide him with access to its entire library of fragrant leaves. Some of Holl’s initial dishes include a garden sandwich that’s made with beets that are roasted in jasmine tea; the Smith Bowl, which has a layer of quinoa cooked in Sencha, a type of Japanese green tea; and a rainbow carrot and barley salad topped with a sheep’s milk cheese infused with White Petal tea.

The cafe’s focus will be on 30 different hot teas, including a traditional Gaiwan service to showcase oolongs, but you can also expect a handful of iced teas and seasonal non-alcoholic tea cocktails that are created in the business’s lab.

Opening in Northwest Portland marks a return to the original neighborhood where teamaker Steven Smith founded the company in 2009. The space currently has 18 seats inside along with 18 more outside on a covered patio. And if you want to know what it might feel like to be a little tea leaf inside one of Smith’s cartons, drink up. The company says its restroom was designed to evoke the aesthetics of its packages.

Smith Teamaker The interior of the new Smith Teamaker location at 500 N.W. 23rd Ave., photo by Andrew Vanasse, courtesy of Smith Teamaker.

Don’t snooze on the ribbon-cutting ceremony if you’re looking to score some free merch. When the doors open at 9 am on Saturday, the first 100 customers will receive a free commemorative tin of tea.

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