Finding Home in A Cup
Thoughts About The Magic of Warm Drinks — and Where I Source My Favorites
One of the things I struggle with is a sense of ‘home.’ I haven’t lived the sort of life where I grow overly attached to places themselves and my list of moves proves it. The baby astrologer in me clucks her tongue and whispers, ‘typical Sagittarius’, but there’s also good psychological grounding to the feeling. A ‘typical’ home just wasn’t really in the cards for me this time around, and the trend kicked off early.
There’s a little joke I tell people — that while some people will take vacations, I pick up and move every few years to really get to know a place. It’s less joke than true — I’ve moved a lot and been a lot of places. I’ve loved them in their own ways, and grew uncomfortable — or disquieted — enough to have to move for some reason or another. I also joke that I’m like Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap — I’m always hoping my next leap is the leap home. With age, I become less brave and I try to never move to something liminal but somehow it always tends to happen.
I live in the liminal, and I know I’m not the only one. I often find myself contemplating how does one find the sacred space of home when not having traditional roots?
This winter was a particularly difficult one that was compounded by the self-reflection sparked by turning 50 in December and losing my steady income job, and then our dog, Cujo, died In February. His loss made me suddenly realize just how much my life had become wrapped around that little guy, especially the last few years. It was already hard for me to find some emotional and mental peace in all this turbulence, and through the winter I definitely was rattled. Dysregulated and feeling beset upon, I did what I often do, and turned to the little rituals and magic that they create to help to redecorate my headspace. Those tiny magic moments that are created when I am focusing my attention on something that helps pull me back into the reality of the present are a big way that I can work through some of the panic and dysregulation of CPTSD.
This difficult, strange winter in particular, I found my grounding in some warm mugs of comfort. They were full of flavors from a place I had as a return address longer than most other places — Pittsburgh.
Probably not what you expected, right? Pittsburgh’s actually this beautiful gem polished through hard work and innovation, and is rarely what one expects. Full of intriguing green spaces and chock full of bridges and varied and inspired architecture. It also contains my absolute favorite place to get coffee and tea from — Prestogeorge, which is a Pittsburgh institution.
In 1958, John “JP” Prestogeorge opened “Olde Fashioned Coffee Shoppe” in the Miracle Mile shopping center in Monroeville, PA. While many places may have a Miracle Mile, none of those places are Monroeville, the very same Monroeville that contains the famous mall from the Night of the Living Dead. None of them have a single Prestogeorge, much less three generations of them.
JP, his son Stan, and his grandson AJ have been dedicated to keeping some of the best tasting coffees and teas in the Pittsburgh region since then.
Prestogeorge’s success isn’t just due to their dedication to bringing in exceptionally sourced and fine products, but it’s also their consistency and absolute lack of pretension that has helped them flourish for so long in the Steel City. There are blends, like the J.P. Hearty Blend, that have been on sale for over 60 years! If you’re looking for a way to understand the quality of their product, there’s nothing wrong with starting with Pittsburgh’s favorite cup of coffee.
Like the little rebel I am, of course I associate the place that has master coffee roasters using a gorgeous, antique coffee roaster to blend, roast, craft, and curate fabulous coffee — with their tea selection.
Tea
It’s never a surprise to people that I have a coffee habit (I am Gen X and a Twin Peaks fan after all), but it can sometimes surprise them that I have built up quite a tea habit as well. Sparked by my time in Scotland, it bloomed while I was living in California. I worked my way through the tea menu of a particular tea house in Pasadena with a friend of mine from work (love ya, Julie). When I returned to Pittsburgh in 2010, I was more than happy to pick up my tea habit again with Prestogeorge. They had everything the fancy tea house had and more — from jasmine pearls and pu-erh’s to the classics like Scottish breakfast and an amazing selection of Earl Grey teas. When I decided to quit drinking in 2014, I dug into their vast tea menu, and spent a lot of time exploring their tisanes (and a lot of time with their herbal detox tea in particular (and I still recommend it!)). Prestogeorge consistently curates some of my favorite flavored sencha teas there, and their ginger green tea is an absolute treasure. If you’ve dreamed of something you haven’t seen you can always get a custom blend (which I did a couple of times to add some dried cherries to a great blueberry tea they had at the time because I had a ridiculously sweet tooth.) When I got crazy about sugar intake, Prestogeorge was there with a steady supply of stevia. My matcha phase when I was into marathoning? They were there.
They gave me a way of taming my own tempests in a teacup.
When I was deep into that tea phase, I was always so delighted to tell people about Prestogeorge for a lot of different reasons. It was a game to guess what they’d come back with, or (if I discovered they were already a regular) what their usual purchase was. Much like my beloved tea house in Pasadena, Prestogeorge was this little treasure often a short jaunt from the office (but long enough of a walk to make many not want to follow you). You can get lost in the hundreds of varieties of teas and coffees displayed in glass jars, bags, or boxes. It’s a delight to have the chance to talk to people knowledgeable and passionate enough to help you find exactly what you’re looking for who are attentive to your needs, and aren’t pretentious about their own tastes or condescending because of their depth of knowledge. The expertise and friendliness of those who get to work in-store is top-notch.
They’ve got a great selection of accessories, too — I remember on a particularly stressful day I took a colleague to Prestogeorge to pick up some flowering tea and their own glass teakettle for it to bloom in. Taking her there where massive glass canisters line the walls like an apothecary, allowing the magic and smells to envelop her — I knew it was just what she needed. Next to rows and rows of exceptional teas and herbs and add-ins and coffees are also a huge variety of bagged teas. You can have your fancy high-altitude milk oolong and your box of PG Tips, too. They don’t judge the experience you’re seeking — they just want to be sure that you get the best of what you’re looking for.
When I got to talk to AJ Prestogeorge about my love of his family’s business — we touched on how Prestogeorge, long associated with coffee, is secretly the best tea shop in Pittsburgh, too! That’s how I got to find out that one of their mantras is ‘seriously dedicated to better coffee and tea.’
I can tell.
Prestogeorge’s central place in my tea-making means that they’ve been there with me through a lot. From highs like times with friends and training for marathons and fueling late-night creativity sessions to the lows like the deaths of friends and family, and the changing world. Even as flavors and blends come and go, there’s still the comfort and assurance that there’s something just perfect waiting to be poured in the cup. There’s something soothing about that ritual. The measuring of the tea leaves, the selection of the water temperature. The wait. Each part of the process helps me regain my mindfulness inch by inch, even in the most shaky and uncertain of times. I can even remember moments in my early life where just some Lipton with a friend was enough to soothe jangled nerves.
Tea isn’t just transformative on a personal level. As AJ Prestogeorge so poetically put it, “So many cultures have ceremonies around tea and coffee, there are so many cultures that are built around ceremony and community and hanging out with people and just having something together and sipping little shots of espresso. the more people get into the nitty gritty of coffee and tea the more they will get into it. Maybe we aren’t passing around gourd of yerba mate, but there is something beautiful about sitting down with your friends and putting together a good cup of coffee. doing the v60 pour over, and repeating the process for everyone.”
Coffee
With that, Let’s talk about that coffee, because there’s a broad selection of fine coffees including single sources and belends. While most often I’m bemoaning that I can’t find a roast light enough, for years Prestogeorge’s MEDIUM roast AA Kenya was just perfect (sometimes we’d switch to a Colombian). That’s how good their roasts are. This isn’t an instance where they gain consistency by over roasting — they gain consistency through experience and expertise, and they do it on a machine that they’ve had since Prestogeorge open — and was an antique when they got it.
But before it even gets into the hands of the master roasters or is loaded into the antique Jabez Burns roaster, there’s been a lot of work to onboard a coffee into Prestogeorge’s supply chain. “Because the way the world is moving is completely towards sustainable practices and sourcing, a lot of companies are more mindful. We are lucky to be working with very solid companies out there bringing in green coffees, with rigorous sustainability practices as well.” From there he could tell me the origins of so many of their coffees — whether it was a story of some being driven up to Pittsburgh by some of the farm’s owners, or weaving a more complex narrative including sustainability certifications and how a country’s infrastructure can impact their ability to effectively trade. Knowing how much they prioritize the well-being of workers and other small businesses makes it easier to enjoy their products, and you can hear the passion for every step of even the seemingly mundane (but ultimately extremely important!) complete understanding of the supply chain.
There’s craftsmanship in every step of their process — from the selection of the coffees to the way they are roasted and blended. Yinz know how I feel about craftsmanship.
Prestogeorge isn’t just looking to introduce some of the best coffees matched with an exceptional roast, but they are also looking to maintain their tried-and-true blends that are beloved across the city (and, through their website they get an even larger reach now!) Part of serving that city is changing with her — and as The Strip District has changed from warehouse-driven traffic to a more gentrified sort, Prestogeorge has sought to meet those challenges and continue to serve the community that they obviously dearly love. They run specials to support local charities and collaborate with other local businesses like Wigle whisky.
I’m not getting anything for talking about my experiences with Prestogeorge except their gratitude and the absolute privilege it was to talk to AJ for so long. The reason I wanted to write all of this down was to give yet another alternative to doomscrolling. Much like making a puppet or learning a new skill, investing some time in the ritual of a warm drink is a great way to reconnect to ourselves.
In a time when people routinely talk about products getting worse, businesses taking advantage of their customers, and that quality will always be thrown to the side for profit, it’s comforting when you can find a place that takes away that anxiety. Where the focus is on making sure you get the exact cuppa you need. Where the people are kind and helpful, and there’s an impossibly big tea and coffee shop in a seemingly tucked in space in an already magical area of Pittsburgh.
You can see Prestogeorge at 37:16 in the video above, or enjoy the entire video by Pittsburgh patron saint Rick Sebak.
Nerves are jangled. Mettle is tested. Days can seem longer than we were ready for. It’s easy to find a reason to be disquieted in a time that feels chaotic. Which is why returning our attention to the tiny rituals that connect us with ourselves — like a series of good deep breaths or an amazing cuppa comfort can be so important in a world designed to make us weary. I may not always know what tomorrow is going to bring, but I can be confident about the sort of comforts I can find in a cup of tea or coffee. May your tea soothe your tempests.