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The name? Yes, it’s to be taken very literally. Smalls tea & coffee is the latest, ittiest, bittiest entrant into the continuing food-and-beverage derby taking place at 2619 1/2 Cherokee Street. It’s a wee place, indeed, only 240 square feet. A tall person can (and should) reach out horizontally, allowing for the chance to literally touch both side walls at once. While it may not have size, Smalls has backstory in abundance.
Proprietor Lisa Govro had been running a tea business out of her ReTrailer (below), a specially-outfitted trailer that allowed her to sling teas at art events. As is true of many businesses attempting to do something interesting and unusual within the City limits, Govro found that dealing with legalese and red tape was less appealing than expected. In time, the thought of opening a storefront for her passion -- healthy tea -- seemed preferable. And the Smalls space was one that she’d targeted all along.
“I’d been stalking this place for a little bit,” she laughs, noting that the prior business’ only remnant is a utilitarian one: a three-compartment sink.
The narrow storefront had been home to Tikal, a Guatemalan import shop and coffeehouse. Prior to that, the 1890s-era space had housed everything from a magic shop to a hair weaving business. Somehow, it’s unlikely that the space was ever as delightful as it today. Even if it came about due to unexpected circumstances.
She says that she was part of a small group of trailer-based businesses that came to life at the same time. Like Smalls tea & coffee, some found an address. (For example, Parsimonia, a vintage clothing retailer, which moved into a storefront on South Grand.) Govro’s keeping the trailer, but only for occasional, arts-based outings; like at Mad Art Gallery, where a side driveway allows her to operate on private property. Or at foodie events, like the Tower Grove Farmer’s Market, where many of her patrons first found her.
“Initially, the whole idea for the ReTrailer was to travel around the country, selling teas,” says Govro, who moved to St. Louis from Seattle in 2012. “Once I started establishing myself as a business, the complex nature of licensing a mobile business in just the City, let alone across the nation… well, I just couldn’t imagine it. I started focusing on my wholesale sales. There was an organic growth into this space, even if I hadn’t been thinking of a brick-and-mortar business.”
Taking the keys from building owner Jason Deem in November of 2013, she had a soft opening in December of last year, the space temporarily outfitted with milk crates and lawn chairs. Delaying the full launch briefly, she officially opened her door on Valentine’s Day.
The space, with its minimal storage, allows patrons a chance to see Govro’s teas in a unique way. About 60 large jars contain her various ingredients, lined up on wooden shelves created from found woods. These attractive jars are both decorative and the simple building blocks of her teas, which are a far bit different than those you’ll find at your local coffeeshop. Here, she mixes basic black and green teas with a variety of herbs, adding that “we try to put a flower in everything we do.
“All of our teas are medicinal in nature,” she says. “They’re all from medical-grade herbs. I have a really strong feeling that the health food community has done a disservice to the public, using jargon-ey terms, rather than language we use in daily life. Unless you know the Whole Foods lingo, you lose out. Here, I try to talk about things in fun ways and we allude to the medicinal qualities by name. Hibiscus, for example, is clinically known to lower blood pressure; so our hibiscus tea’s called Drop It Like It’s Hot. I assume, though, that people don’t know anything about my teas when they walk in and we start from there. I don’t want them intimidated or turned off by what they’re getting into. I try to communicate what we put into our teas by keeping it fun and kinda cute. But that’s just my personality, so whatever!
“I have close to 60 jars of herbs that’re up there,” she says. “I work with… I dunno. It’s hard to quantify that. I try to not work with an herb I don’t know a whole lot about. As my knowledge of herbology continues to grow, my collections and the line of signature blends will continue to brow. I have 50 herbs that I feel expert-ish on and I have another 50 that I’m experimenting on and getting to know. It’s sort of a mad scientist’s lab here. Before I put any herb into a tea, I get to know it pretty well, using it alone or putting it in with other herbs. I could talk forever about herbs. I just love having the conversation.”
Coffee’s also available, but only in single-serves, brewed up in a Chemex with each order. With no classic, coffeehouse espresso machine, that’s the way that Govro will keep that portion of the business going. But it’s not as if the place lacks for caffeine.
Asking for some caffeinated power, she offered the simply-named Fake Coffee. It’s made up of raw cacao, chicory, dandelion root and cinnamon. Her short menu notes that it’s “an earthy, herbaceous chocolate tea that look and feels like a cup of coffee.” It’s an intense drink, with an almost-immediate punch; she only sells a patron one cup, lest the second cup overwhelm. Govro, already an enthusiastic sort, tells a funny story about making it for a Food Truck Friday event.
“I have so much respect for the caffeine in raw cacao,” she says. “The Fake Coffee’s gotten me a few times, the sheer caffeine overload. For Food Truck Friday, I brewed 10 gallons and kept testing it and testing it, making sure it was just right. By the time the event started, I couldn’t communicate to the customers...I had to have a friend work for me, while I just buzzed around. Everybody reacts differently to each stimulant.” Similarly, “I was always fine with yerba mate, but I used it once and thought I was having a heart attack. It’s a feeling I’d never had before.”
While those experiences are extreme ones, Govro’s relentless in her approach to research, going so far as to self-harvest ingredients like rose hips and gingkos. The search for tea perfection’s been in place since she first alighted on the idea of founding a tea business.
“Essentially, it came from my Cup of Sunshine tea,” she recalls. “I had a friend send me a five-pound box of turmeric. I started playing around with the recipe and decided to share a Cup of Sunshine with the world. When I moved to St. Louis, I knew I wanted to start a business that brought together the ideas of food and medicine and how little changes in our diets could have positive effects on us. I’m going to be offering tea-blending workshops; we had one for the heart on Valentine’s Day, featuring six herbs that are supportive of the cardiovascular system. We let everyone blend up their own teas, from the best, most-sustainable, organic ingredients. The way that they’ve been cultivated is exactly what you need for a flavorful cup of tea. You could throw any herb here into a pot with hot water and I think it’d be amazing.”
This past weekend, Govro was able to open her front door for the first time. Because of “the tunnel-like effect of the room” it’s turned out to be a bit of a noisy place, the sounds of Cherokee bouncing off her narrow, high walls. In coming months, she hopes to involve a small patio seating area, maybe an acoustic music series, which would really pack in the bodies for a listening room-type experience.
Comestibles include sweets and savories from Whisk: A Sustainable Bakeshop as well as pastries and baguettes from Red Fox Baking and Catering, where bread gets baked in a hand-made, wood-burning oven.
“I’m optimistic,” she says. “I really believe in this business. I know that once people find us, they’ll come back again. I also know the first few months are going to be really hard.”
But some fun indicators have already shown themselves. For example, Gorvo (below) says, “Well, the other day, we were really slow all day. At four, the place got filled with customers. I didn’t know any of them. And they were in groups of two and three. The groups didn’t know each other, either. But because the place is so intimate, everyone had a good time. Everyone got to know each other and they were all happy to be here; they were all introducing themselves to each other and that’s not something I’d seen before. The space really invites people in, it’s already shown that it’s welcoming.”
Smalls tea & coffee can be found on Facebook at facebook.com/smallsteaandcoffee. Current hours are 9-5 daily, though they may shortly change to 10-7, to reflect the daily patterns of Cherokee.
