Bedford-Stuyvesant Specialty

In this town, coffee culture is taken very seriously—layered this, caramel notes that—while the world of tea often takes a backseat. But tea has a deep complexity and global culture all its own. Alfonso Wright and Jamila McGill, the duo behind Brooklyn Tea, get it. Their tea room on Nostrand Avenue is the spot for a steaming pot of Japanese sencha or single-estate Assam. The owners are incredibly knowledgeable about tea farming and emphasize the importance of choosing loose-leaf over industrially produced bagged tea. (Tea bags are generally bleached, and the crushed, dusty tea leaves they contain are often of an inferior quality compared to whole, loose-leaf options.)

Bed-Vyne Wine & Spirits is a collaboration from four wine and booze enthusiasts. Instead of sticking to the rubric and categorizing its inventory by region only, Bed-Vyne opts for accessibility and categorizes by taste. Do you like sweet? Dry? Earthy? Floral? Bed-Vyne has it all, and much of it is unusual. On the spirits end, the founders favor locally made and artisanal products and wine produced by Black-owned wineries, plus wines made under their own Bed-Vyne label. Order for local delivery via Drizly or download the custom app to scroll through the inventory and load up your cart.