❓ FAQ

Because exchanging trust, instead of money, makes for more meaningful interactions! Because if something can be free, it should be free! Because we as a culture need to learn to receive help & love without shame! Because it serves as a simple gesture of care in a world full of fear & loneliness!

Because we want to serve tea FOR ALL!

Read more about the why of The Tea Stand in our Manifesto.

Well, we do more than just this, but serving tea in parks is the original & fundamental format of The Tea Stand. None of our other programming would exist had we not started serving free tea in the park. As of writing this, we serve free tea in Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick every Sunday from 12-6pm.

Our programming also includes serving free tea at food distributions (Distros), herbalism workshops, silent parallel play sessions, and much more.

Check our calendar to stay up-to-date with our upcoming events!

All of the tea we serve is donated by supporters of The Tea Stand, mostly our neighbors. As a result, we have a diverse inventory of teas & herbs, everything from pu-erh to chamomile.

Generally, we like to offer at least one "true" tea and one herbal tea at events. Most of tea we we serve is loose leaf; we bag the tea in advance using unbleached tea bags.

We offer hot tea all year-round and prepare cold brewed tea for summer events.

If you'd like to donate tea, read our tea donation guidelines.

Friends and strangers alike share their time, funds, tea, and ideas to collectively create, operate, and support this project. This is why we use "we" pronouns when describing The Tea Stand.

But to be a little more specific...

• Miles is the founder & steward of The Tea Stand – he hosts most of the events, writes the newsletter, etc. This is their full-time work!
• ziggy bee is the current host of our weekly popups in Maria Hernandez Park.
• Noah Sai is the current host of our monthly popups in Herbert von King Park.
• Adin Vashi is the official Tea Stand advisor / web developer / director of philosophy.

The majority of our events are in North Brooklyn, specifically Bushwick & BedStuy. By staying hyperlocal, we seek to become a familiar presence and develop meaningful, long-term relationships with our neighbors.

However, we love to explore this city and meet its many inhabitants. We're proud to have served free tea in all five boroughs of NYC!

We host events all year-round, and most are free and open to the public.

Visit our calendar to see where we'll be next!

You can also join our free monthly newsletter to stay in the loop.

If you'd like to collaborate with us, there are generally two options:

1. Join us at an event we're already hosting. This could mean setting up a small table next to us in the park, vending / offering something at one of our events, etc. You can email us with any ideas.
   
2. Invite us to serve free tea at an event you're organizing. Send us an email with some event info and we'll see if we can participate! We love serving free tea in collaboration with local artists & radical orgs. Please note that we ask for payment for these types of collaborations to cover material & labor costs.

Also, there are many ways we can collaborate outside of just events, so don't be shy if you have an idea that doesn't fit in with the above! We'd love to chat :)

Here are some ways you can support The Tea Stand:

1. Donate money! Support us via our membership program for as little as $3/month and help sustain The Tea Stand! As a thank you for your support, you'll receive a variety of perks, like discounts at tea shops, seasonal boxes of tea, and locally-made ceramics. Become a member here.
   
2. Donate time! We offer a wide-range of volunteer opportunities, from serving tea to taking photos at events. Learn more here.
   
3. Donate tea! Contribute to our circular tea economy! All tea is welcome, so long as you know the ingredients. Read our donation guidelines here.

Miles, the founder & steward of The Tea Stand, spent a few weeks backpacking around Southwest Asia and North Africa in 2019. Never before had he experienced such warmth, trust, and hospitality from complete strangers.

Miles was particularly drawn to the ubiquitous teahouses while in SWANA, each of which served as a hub for conversation, stillness, and togetherness. They loved being able to share space with others without any pressure to show up in a certain way.

Upon returning to the US, he was saddened by the lack of casual, social spaces like these teahouses. And so, in an effort to fill this void and create more opportunities for strangers to connect over tea, he started serving free tea in his local park & hasn't stopped since :)

Well... yes and no. Crazily enough, I came up with the idea to serve free tea to strangers before I had ever heard of the Monk & Robot books written by Becky Chambers.

When I got around to reading A Psalm for the Wild-Built — the first book in the Monk & Robot duology — I could not believe the alignment between myself and Dex, between the world The Tea Stand believes in and the world of Panga. It remains a personal favorite and something like a sacred text for The Tea Stand.

(If you haven't read the Monk & Robot books, you can borrow A Psalm for the Wild-Built for free through our library here!)

The short answer: a combination of the membership program and personal savings. You can read my privilege statement here.

Our membership program (more info here) first and foremost covers operational costs — cups, printing costs, general equipment maintenance, etc. Leftover funds go toward my cost of living, as The Tea Stand in its current form could not continue without me pouring all my energy (and funds) into it.

As of writing this (June 2026), membership donations cover roughly half of my living expenses (rent money). I hope to be able to pay myself a livable wage in the near future before my savings run out.

Longer term, we're inspired by the possibility of distributing funds from the membership program in a more formalized way throughout the neighborhood – compensating artists, supporting local mutual aid groups, etc.