I’ve never really been a big fan of coffee. My dad says it’s an “acquired taste,” but I think I like tea more. My first day in New York was definitely a crazy day, filled with walking, eating, and jaywalking. The weirdest part was that it started raining. I’ve always been a fan of the rain, but I really did not want it to show up in my incredibly short trip to New York. My mom and I decided to go to Harney & Sons SoHo for tea, even though that meant running down the streets of SoHo in the rain.

Harney & Sons is a tea company based in Connecticut with tasting rooms in New York City and Millerton (a small town in New York on the border of Connecticut). The New York City location is placed in the trendy SoHo area, surrounded by cast-ironarchitecture, artists’ lofts, and art galleries.

Have you ever had that fantasy of drinking tea or coffee in a small café while it pours rain outside? I have, and I was able to make that dream a reality! My mom and I sat down at a table in the café portion of the room, and we were given a menu with more teas than I could name. I eventually settled on getting pineapple matcha tea and a single dark chocolate macaron.

Honestly, I wish I chose a different flavor macaron because I don’t even like dark chocolate macarons. (I planned to make up for my poor choice of flavor at Ladurée on our last day in the city.)

There’s something strangely pleasant about sitting down for an hour or so and drinking tea. New York City is filled to the brim with the hustle and bustle of city life, so it’s nice to have that short break. I know, I only experienced hours of hustle and bustle, but for a boy from the Dallas suburbs, it was a lot to take in.

Maybe you wouldn’t really want that break. Maybe it’s not your cup of tea. It’s funny how there are so many idioms based on tea: “not your cup of tea,” “just my cup of tea,” “not for all the tea in China…” Tea has a universal acceptance, from Britain to Japan to Morocco, and these expressions are a great example of how important tea is in our global society.

My mom is definitely a tea drinker. Since I started drinking tea, our house has been somewhat understocked, mostly because I only drink green tea in the mornings and chamomile tea in the evenings. What makes the tea even more interesting is that the mugs we use from them are from different Starbucks stores around the world.

Each mug is from a different city somewhere in the world. I don’t just mean one from Denver and one from Austin, but I mean one from Kyoto and another from Munich. It’s a really unique collection that chronicles our journeys, almost like a unique diary telling our story.

Just like how my tea helps me unwind and relax—even if only for a little bit—my trip to Harney & Sons helped me take a minute to have moment of mindfulness despite the hustle and bustle of New York City, with its endless skyscrapers and many people from around the world.