For ten plus years, Cornelia Bean has been warming me up from the inside out with a cup of tea, sometimes a coffee, but always with a smile.

The door. Enter through a heavy solid brass door, that could only have once belonged to a turn of the century bank. It is the first thing that will catch your attention. It’s heavy. Step inside, and that or any other weight is lifted. There is nothing heavy inside here. There is a type of magic in a warm cup. Soothing. Calm. Kind. To take a moment, if only a short one, to leave your phone in your pocket or purse, to enjoy now, to be.

The room. A room filled with beaming light, and delightful innovations from around the world will attract your gaze then your attentions. Locally crafted goods, from pottery and teas adorn the shelves. Products from around the world pique your interests and prompt your questions, which the proprietor is always to happy to oblige. She is your guide through this whimsical world.

The People. Bob and Cory Krul.

Bob, a seemingly serial inventor with such popular inventions as “The Brewt”, which most of us will be very familiar with, and more recently, “The Wall”. An absolutely brilliant idea, already winning “the best new innovation” at the world tea expo. As the enjoyment of tea being thousands of years old, that’s really saying something.

Cory is my shaman to the world of tea. Just like Cornelia Bean, the store, (as it is named after her grandmother) she is a beaming of light. Never a time I step foot in the store there not to be a smile waiting to welcome. Well travelled and infinitely knowledgable. She is there not just to sell tea, but to take you on a journey. To offer you an experience that only such a place can bring, and you will want to travel to again, and again.

As Bernard-Paul Heroux said, “There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be diminished by a nice up of tea”.  

- Bobby

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