About Samovar Tea Lounge

SAN FRANCISCO TEA at Samovar Tea Lounge: The Bay Area's favorite tea house featuring organic, fair trade tea, and tea service. Visit Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco for a tea breakfast, brunch, lunch, breakfast, high tea, and dinner. Green tea, Black Tea, Herbal Infusions, in San Francisco or available to order our tea online.

We created Samovar Tea Lounge to make the delicious and intriguing world of tea approachable and affordable. Samovar Tea Lounge is grounded in the values inherent to tea: community, vitality, and equanimity.

Mission

HERE AT SAMOVAR TEA LOUNGE, it’s never simply business as usual. In other words, business isn’t just a profit-making mechanism, but rather a vehicle for the greater good. Making people feel good, feel healthy and attain happiness is our bottom line. And, challenging as it is, it’s equally rewarding and fulfilling to see our guests beam with joy and express their heartfelt gratitude. We take equal pride in employing a staff of people who love their work and feel their efforts make a difference in the world.

OUR MISSION is to create peace through drinking tea.We do it because the world needs us. If it sounds like a high aim, it assuredly is. The tea experience that we deliver solves the universal needs of humanity: community, vitality, and equanimity. We do it through every little thing we do at Samovar; online, in-store, and offsite. What we do is an expression of our values, the high ideals and essence of the tea experience. How do we know we are succeeding? We evaluate ourselves based on three standards: Profit, Family, and Environment. Customers spread the love, returning to us over and over again, while telling everyone and their Aunt about us. When we hear that customers love what we do, we know we are doing our job. We love working here, and we give it our all, whether it’s for 6 months or 6 years. Our success raises the energy of our environment, sustains it, forwards its evolution, and serves as a power of example for other businesses to reach for and enjoy equal success. Our Values stem directly from the experience of tea. Awareness, Beauty, Calmness, Community, Compassion, Efficiency, Energy, Fun, Health of body, mind, spirit, and earth, Honesty, Humility, Innovation, Kindness, Learning, Passion, Peace, Respect, Sensitivity, Service.

Experiencing the tea lifestyle is a choice to take care of your body, to make time for yourself, and to spend your life with those people you love. Samovar Tea Lounge aims to provide you with the means to do these things by offering you an unparalleled experience in our physical locations, and with all of our products.

We believe in the tea lifestyle, and 5,000 years of worldwide tea drinking has proven it has something to offer. Crossing the cultures and the continents, the tea lifestyle has entered a new age where it is perhaps more relevant today than ever before. As borders blur, and economic boundaries fall, cultures everywhere are mingling, and tea is ever-present. With Samovar Tea Lounge, we are bringing these tea cultures together into a new concept that captures the essence of the international tea traditions in a contemporary way.

Our goal is to create a company that is good for this world. We partner with tea experts and suppliers from small family farms and estates, and local businesses and organizations. Through our service and environment we aim to embody the tea lifestyle and provide a place for our customers to escape, relax, and be healthy.

Our name Samovar Tea Lounge comes from the Eastern European or South-west Asian tea invention "samovar" meaning "self boiler" created for the sole purpose of boiling water for tea. A samovar embodies the tea-lifestyle perfectly: The drinking of tea, gathered around the samovar, was always done with leisure, and amongst friends and family in a warm and cozy environment.

"Tea Lounge" was an important element to incorporate in our business to evoke the ideal of a contemporary and comfortable place to be; hang out, chill out, eat, drink, socialize, escape from the world at large, and take the time to really enjoy life. As people generally think of tea as either an Asian or an English phenomenon, the name Samovar Tea Lounge reminds us that in fact tea is truly pan-culture, and, that it is just as desirable and delicious today as it was when it all began over 5000 years ago.

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Contact Us

Catering & Special Events
Let us cater a tea party at your location, with our delicious teas, snacks, and even a tea tasting! We can help you plan the perfect Samovar tea party at your home or office. Please see our menu for an idea of the kinds of foods and teas we serve. Email us to help host your special event.

Orders
Regarding your online order, please contact Ezekiel and wewill make every effort to get back to you within 24 hours.

General Information
For general information questions, please contact Jodet.

Private Events
For information regarding booking private events and reservations, please contact Erick Xicum.

Bookeeping & Accounting
Regarding bookeping and accounting and vendor relations, please contact Adam O'neil, and he will make every effort to get back to you within 24 hours.

Product Development
Have a great idea for collaboration?
Contact Jesse.

Investor Relations
We are growing! Email us if you are interested in investment opportunites with us.
Robert or Jesse.

Wholesale
Are you interested in carrying our products? Would you like to add tea to your menu? jodet@samovartea.com

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Visit Samovar-Yerba Buena

We are open...
Sunday - Wednesday: 10am - 8 pm
Thursday - Saturday: 10am - 9 pm
Phone: (415) 227-9400

Located in the heart of downtown San Francisco, on the Upper Terrace in the Yerba Buena Gardens
730 Howard Street, between 3rd and 4th Streets, above the waterfall on the upper terrace, in Yerba Buena Gardens
San Francisco, CA 94103

Directions to Our Store:
from the North Bay
1. US-101 S toward SAN FRANCISCO 10.6 miles
2. Turn RIGHT onto VAN NESS AVE / US-101. .3 miles
3. Turn LEFT onto BROADWAY ST. 0.1 miles
4. BROADWAY ST becomes BROADWAY TUNNEL / ROBERT C LEVY TUNNEL.
0.5 miles
5. BROADWAY TUNNEL / ROBERT C LEVY TUNNEL becomes BROADWAY ST. 0.1 miles
6. Turn RIGHT onto STOCKTON ST. 0.3 miles
7. STOCKTON ST becomes STOCKTON ST TUNNEL. 0.1 miles
8. STOCKTON ST TUNNEL becomes STOCKTON ST. 0.3 miles
9. STOCKTON ST becomes 4TH ST. 0.1 miles
10. Turn LEFT onto MISSION ST.
11. Park, and follow walking directions to Samovar

from the South Bay
1. US-101 N toward SAN FRANCISCO
2. Take I-80 E toward BAY BRIDGE / OAKLAND / SEVENTH ST / US-101 N.
3. Take the FOURTH ST exit toward EMBARCADERO. 0.1 miles
4. Turn SLIGHT LEFT onto BRYANT ST. 0.1 miles
5. Turn LEFT onto 3RD ST. 0.4 miles
6. Turn RIGHT onto MISSION ST.
7. Park, and follow walking directions to Samovar

from the East Bay
1. I-80 W toward SAN FRANCISCO
3. Take the FREMONT ST exit. 0.4 miles
4. Turn LEFT onto FREMONT ST. 0.1 miles
5. Turn LEFT onto MISSION ST. 0.4 miles
6. End at Yerba Buena Gardens
7. Find Parking and walk to Samovar Tea Lounge in the Gardens

from Union Square
1. Walk South towards 4th St, to Mission St. (2 minutes)
2. Take a left on Mission St, and walk East to the entrance to the Yerba Buena Gardens (2 minutes)
3. Take a right into the Gardens, and follow the path which parallels the Sony Metreon.
4. Walk up the stairs to the upper terrace, above the Martin Luther King waterfall, and come on in!

regarding Parking
1. Street Parking:
Street parking is metered, two-hour limit, and .25 for each half hour. After 6 p.m. there is no need to plug the meter. Always check for and carefully read the parking restrictions posted along the surrounding blocks. Most streets have street cleaning from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m.

2. Outdoor Parking:
827 Folsom Street, south side of Folsom St, just west of 4th Street (one half block from rink)
Phone (415) 421-1475
Hours: Open 24 hours
Rates: Weekends $5 flat rate,
Weekdays $2 each 20 minutes up to maximum of $10 ($8 earlybird special before 9 AM

3. Moscone Center Garage
255 Third Street (between Folsom and Howard Streets, one block from the rink)
Phone 415-777-2782
Open 6 AM to 11:30 PM Monday to Saturday, Closed Sunday

4. 5th & Mission Yerba Buena Gardens Garage
833 Mission Street (between 4th and 5th Streets, two blocks from the rink)
Phone 415-982-8522
Open 24 hours, 7 days a week

Public Transport
MUNI / BART
1. Take public transportation to the "Powell Stree" stop, and exit to Market Street.
2. Walk South on 4th St, to Mission St. (1 minute)
3. Take a left on Mission St, and walk East to the entrance to the Yerba Buena Gardens (1 minute)
4. Take a right into the Gardens, and follow the path which parallels the Sony Metreon.
5. Walk up the stairs to the upper terrace, above the Martin Luther King Waterfall, and come on in!

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Visit Samovar-Castro

We are open...
Every Day: 10am-10:00pm
Phone: (415) 626-4700

Located in the Castro-Mission area of San Francisco
498 Sanchez St., on the corner of 18th Street
San Francisco, CA 94114

Directions to Our Store:
from the North Bay
1. Head South on 101 towards San Francisco
2. Bear left at Lombard St - go 0.1 mi
3. Turn right at Divisadero St - go 2.0 mi
4. Bear left at Castro St - go 0.5 mi
5. Turn left at 16th St - go 0.2 mi
6. Turn right at Sanchez St - go 0.2 mi
7. We are on the corner of 18th and Sanchez

from the South Bay
1. Take the US-101 N exit 434-A to San Francisco
2. Take the Duboce Ave exit - go 0.1 mi
3. Bear left onto the Duboce Ave ramp - go 0.0 mi
4. Go ahead on Duboce Ave - go 0.3 mi
5. Bear left at Market St - go 0.4 mi
6. Turn left at Sanchez St - go 0.3 mi
7. We are on the corner of 18th and Sanchez

from the East Bay
1. Head into San Francisco from the Bay Bridge
2. Bear left onto the Duboce Ave ramp - go 0.0 mi
3. Bear right at Duboce Ave - go 0.3 mi
4. Bear left at Market St - go 0.4 mi
5. Turn left at Sanchez St - go 0.3 mi
6. We are on the corner of 18th and Sanchez

There is 2-hour street parking throughout the Castro and all-day parking on Dolores Street.

Public Transport
MUNI
J-Church We are 1 block west (uphill) from the J-Church stop at 18th Street.
33-Line MUNI # 33 bus line stops directly outside our tea lounge.
K, L, M Lines: We are three blocks from the Castro Street Station on the MUNI underground.
Walk 1 block down Castro to 18th St, turn left, go 2 blocks.
F-Market rail line We are three blocks from the end of the historic F-Market rail line.
Walk 1 block down Castro, turn left onto 18th St for 2 blocks.

BART
16th St & Mission Take 16th Street west for 5 blocks, then turn left on Sanchez for 2 blocks
Click here to plan your trip using Bart's Take Transit trip planner.

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The Samovar was a Russian invention of the mid-18th century that is used to boil water for tea. It became the symbol of Russian hospitality and family comfort as well as a sign of prosperity.