Tianti and Tea
- TJ Smith
- Jul 24, 2019
- 2 min read
Hello Crappers!
New York City, as it turns out, is the city of Oddly Specific Stores and this bookstore fits snugly into that category. Meet Tianti Books and Cafe! You can find this store along 8th Ave (scaffolding not included)!
Tianti Books and Cafe is a quaint little store that is very specifically focused. It is dedicated to selling books, DVDs, CDs and accessories for practitioners of Falun Dafa.
Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is a Chinese religious spiritual practices that combines meditation and qigong (a form of holistic body posturing) with the moral philosophical teachings of compassion, truthfulness and forbearance. The practice is focused on the cultivation of virtue with the end goal of spiritual enlightenment. It's related to Buddhism although it employs Taoist elements.*
We happened across Tianti due to a particular obsession with tea that my partner possesses and the slowly dying batteries on our phones. Immediately upon stepping inside, this is a calm place. They have a selection of international teas on the menu so we ordered a French one and took our seats. It was served in a beautiful teapot with a cup on a little tray that the guy behind the counter brought out to us. Bookshelves lined the walls behind the tables and all the books were on Falun Dafa with a few exceptions that seemed to be about Chinese communism. They had books in a number of different languages not limited to English and Chinese.
I browsed a bit and found that there was a section of introductory books as well as a meditation room out the back. There were toilets (they were really nice!) and overall the place felt serene. The tea was wonderful and we left Tianti feeling quite relaxed.
If you're at all interested in learning about religion and spirituality or you just want a spot of nice, reasonably priced tea, I would recommend popping into Tianti Books and Cafe.
You can find out more about Tianti and Falun Dafa on their website or just wander into the store!
Until next time!
Happy crapping!
