After a decade of serving thoughtfully brewed tea and building a loyal following in Seattle, Young Tea has officially opened its doors in Bellevue. At the heart of it all is founder Caroline Lee, whose dedication to quality ingredients, community connection, and cultural tradition has shaped every cup.
We sat down with Caroline in the new Bellevue location to talk about the journey that brought her here, what makes this space special, and why Young Tea is more than just a place to grab a drink—it’s a place to feel at home.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
We’re visiting you today in your new Bellevue location – but where else can customers find Young Tea?
This is actually our third location. Our first location was in the Chinatown-International District for seven years. We started a second location in the Wallingford area, and it’s a nice neighborhood; we enjoy it so much. We still have our Wallingford the store, even though we are opening this third location in Bellevue. We’re on Northeast 20th. There’s a light rail station close by, three blocks away. There are a lot of car dealers on this street, so we stand out and are easy to recognize.
How did you decide to open a second location in Bellevue?
We’ve been in this tea business for 10 years, we’re actually celebrating our 10 year anniversary this month. We have a lot of loyal fans who live on the Eastside. People have been waiting for this location for so long. It took us six years, believe it or not.
Talk a little bit about the tea that you serve here. What are some of the customers’ favorites? What’s bringing them back?
We have a very simple and fundamental philosophy: We want to serve our customers the best ingredients. So I import all the tea leaves myself. I work with many tea farmers from Taiwan or China, even India. Every ingredient I put into my product has to be top-notch, the best. I always say, “for the things that I don’t dare to feed my family, I don’t feed customers.”
Our milk tea is really popular, although we do have so many good, just straight tea drinks. My favorite is Iron Buddha milk tea and Iron Buddha tea, because the tea farmer I work with is a young tea farmer, and he puts his heart and soul into growing his tea leaves.
How did you get into the tea business? What is your passion?
I grew up in Taiwan drinking high-quality Oolong tea, so I’ve always been a big fan of good teas. Funny thing is that I actually didn’t drink bubble tea when I lived in Taiwan. So why did I open up a bubble tea business? Because I want to use bubble tea as an easy gateway to lead people to want to learn more about tea.
Could you talk a little bit about sustainability and how you’re thinking about sustainability in your business?
Sustainability is really important in my mind in terms of running my business. We encourage customers to purchase a reusable mason jar, and also we have reusable straws, so we can reduce some waste to make the earth healthier and cleaner.
What advice do you have for a potential future small business owner looking to open a retail business in the tea world, or any other type of business?
To run a small business is not that easy. You’ve got to have some guts, but I think passion is something really important. Over the years, I’ve encountered so many difficulties, including the COVID period, but I really have a passion for tea and for serving people, so that’s something that really motivates me to keep moving forward. So work hard, be patient, be passionate about what you’re doing, and love serving people. I think everyone can start a small business.
Talk a little bit about some of the features here in the Bellevue location that make it unique.
The biggest difference between our Bellevue location and other locations is we have a really spacious interior that is very comfortable. Me and my husband, we worked so hard on this. My husband designed and built this space and I did all the decoration. I’m sure that this location can provide a really comfortable, really nice place with some cultural atmosphere. It’s really good for friends to get together, girlfriends wanting to catch up, and family get-togethers. Everybody can enjoy the space here with a cup of tea.
Could you talk a little about the new tea brewing machine you showed us that’s a feature of the Bellevue location?
So I purchased a really expensive, fancy machine. That machine has the newest technology, so it can brew tea within a very short time to extract the tea flavor. The tea it brews contains less caffeine, is very sweet, and has no astringency.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
We’ve been in this business for 10 years. We try to do a lot of things to involve in the community and to give back to the community as much as we can. I believe we can do the same thing here in Bellevue. So I really want to invite everybody to come, experience the space, and try our wonderful teas.