Kong Mountain Tea To Pour Into Harvard Square in August

Online tea shop Kong Mountain Tea is set to open a physical location in Harvard Square this August, combining a retail storefront with a traditional Chinese tea room.

Founded by former Scituate public school teacher Xi Ouyang in 2018, Kong Mountain Tea began as an online store selling Chinese loose-leaf tea and handmade teaware. Ouyang also runs an Instagram account featuring the tea harvesting and brewing process.

Now, she is expanding her business to a storefront on Massachusetts Ave.

In addition to operating as a retail shop, the new location will offer ticketed tea tastings featuring selected blends and confections. Ouyang plans to offer three ticket prices based on ingredient quality. Employees can prepare the tea, or visitors can opt to brew it themselves.

Ouyang said the business was inspired by her cousin’s tea room in China’s Jiangxi Province, where she grew up. She said the fast pace of life in American cities differs vastly from the culture of her hometown, which placed a greater emphasis on quality of life than work.

Tea, she added, is her way of staying grounded.

“Especially with technology and AI, people are going faster and faster. However, on the opposite side of the world, people are still using traditional methods and human laborers to handpick stuff,” Ouyang said. “That kind of lifestyle pulls me back to a really simple and slow life.”

Ouyang said she hopes the tea room will be a space where people can “slow down and have quality time for themselves.”

Ahdom C.M. Sayre, the project’s designer and builder, said he shares Ouyang’s vision for the tea room.

“The product is the space as much as it is the product being sold in it,” Sayre said.

Sayre previously designed Tea at Shiloh, a tea room based in Los Angeles. An architect who specializes in “experiential environments,” he said he aims to create rooms that feel personal and inviting, compared to the more superficial atmosphere of a typical retail store.

“People can come and have these time and space experiences that are really rich and that perfectly suit this need for a higher quality environment,” Sayre said. “It’s not retail, where it’s just kind of for show.”

Ouyang said she plans to use the space to host events in collaboration with local artists in the area. Kong Mountain Tea has previously partnered with local businesses, including Somerville Chocolate for a chocolate and tea pairing event held on Valentine’s Day.

“We are trying to include a wide range of activities or hands-on experience to help people find joy,” Ouyang said.

Ouyang also hopes to promote intercultural learning and teach visitors how to incorporate tea brewing into their daily lives. She said Cambridge is an ideal location for the business because its residents are highly-educated, open-minded, and interested in learning about other cultures.

“I don’t want the tea room only to be tea-related,” she said. “I want it to be an embracing space — to embrace art, to embrace sustainable lifestyle, to embrace culture.”

—Crimson summer intern Lena M. Aloise contributed reporting.

—Staff writer Alexa M. Schmitt can be reached at [email protected] or Signal at alexaschmitt.15. Follow her on X ​​@alexa_m15_s.