Tea house boasts
many unique aspects
Strega presents homegrown art
and the art of tea
By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer
In a coffee culture gone berserk, the art
of tea drinking has often and sadly taken a back seat. However, tea, or the
beverage made from pouring hot water over dried plants, herbs and legumes is
nearly as ancient as recorded time.
Kayla and Kim Harrison at the
uniquely designed counter in Strega.
Express photo by David N. Seelig
Tea was first discovered in China in 2737
B.C. and in A.D. 350 the first description of drinking tea was written in a
Chinese dictionary.
Attempting to rectify this historical
oversight here in the Wood River Valley is Kim Harrison, who with her family,
has remodeled and opened Strega, a teahouse and bistro, in Ketchum.
Strega—"witch" in Italian— boasts many
unique aspects, above and beyond the 60 types of organic teas served.
Upon entering the remodeled former home on
1st Street in Ketchum, on what is known informally as gallery row, one notices a
mammoth, whimsically sculpted counter.
Harrison, an artist in several genres,
constructed this singular piece by making the bones of it out of wood and then
adding wood, tarpaper, chicken wire, two coats of cement and sculpture plaster
on the front. It not only bends as an L around the work area but also is the
main architectural feature of the tea house.
On the front of the ship’s bow-like
counter is a three dimensional tea bush, with inlaid metal features: leaves,
artichokes, butterflies, dragon flies, roses and berries that roam all over the
bush as well as the counter. A mosaic of the Strega logo designed by Harrison is
inlaid in the center of the floor of this room. Harrison, who has done many
mosaics and artistic features in her home as well, shrugs off the
accomplishment. An art director, she graduated from the Art Center School of
Design in Los Angeles, where she met her husband Michael, an industrial
designer.
"I know how to use materials and make
whatever you can think of, or else Michael can," she said.
Harrison, who started and designed the
Sacred Cow Yoga Studio with Mariel Hemingway, was also the artistic director of
Spiegel School of Performing Arts that later morphed into Sun Valley Ballet
School.
Because her children have been home
schooled for approximately six years, they worked alongside Harrison for three
months to remodel and prepare Strega for its December 2003 opening. Shane, 16,
and Kayla, 15, work at Strega as barristos and take English and Algebra classes
through the College of Southern Idaho.
Kim Harrison waits on customers in
a sunny corner of the cafe. Express
photo by David N. Seelig
Kayla describes the experience of creating
Strega as an education in construction, finances, design, and how to run a
business. Shane and another home schooled student, Beau Bergdahl, laid the
pavers, built the rustic fence and gate that surrounds the house and did much of
the landscaping, construction and painting. "Everyone knows basically everything
about how to run the place now," Harrison said.
Strega also houses the Iconoclast
Newsstand & Annex. Here one can buy periodicals as well as cult comics, vintage
tomes and current McSweeney’s and The Believer: two noncommercial magazines for
and about writers.
In other words, it’s all very comfortable,
easy going, kind of European in feel and everything from the tea to the food is
organic. One can often find a flock of hardworking kids, in the kitchen, at the
counter and doing their homework in the café.
Harrison makes a bistro type dish for
dinner nightly, and serves carefully chosen wines and brews.
The tables and chairs are comfortable and
commodious with a clean and unfettered look complementing the homemade food and
exotic array of teas. Among the more fanciful and unique teas is one from one of
the largest tea bush in the world. In China, this is a tourist attraction,
Harrison said.
She also carried Queen Victoria’s Flower
tea, which as it steeps releases small flowers that float out of the tied
together bundle of leaves, which resembles a chrysanthemum.
Harrison is happy to discuss all the teas
attributes, both healthful, taste wise and decorative such as Tibetan rhodiola
pods, Pai Mu Tan green tea wheels, White Monkey Paw, Yerba Matte and several
rooibus. Many of these teas are rolled and shaped, creating various styles,
tastes and grades. This process also adds to the uniqueness of the final
product, viewed as the art of tea. During these refinements, the valuable whole
leaves are removed from lower quality tea dust and fannings.
Harrison has a contact who’s a long time
friend and partner of her husband’s, in China, Tian Long, who exports these teas
directly to her.
There’s the art of tea, the art of Kim and
there’s the art of Strega, which acts as a gallery to display the work of
others.
Currently photos of Spain by Michelle
Schwartz hang throughout, as well as featured bronze sculptures by Timi Saviers.
Soon, happenings—musical and
otherwise—will be begin appearing at Strega.
One afternoon last week in the all age
friendly teahouse, teenagers gathered after school; a six year old was
celebrating a birthday; and a group of post skiing ladies had rolled down their
one piece ski suits, shaken their hair out of their hats and were happily
sipping tea. Ahhh.