Served with butter (traditionally yak butter) in Tibetan restaurants, mixed into rich ice cream at Japanese eateries, poured ad infinitum at Chinese dim sum palaces, tea-and tea culture-has its roots in Asia. But as its health benefits, particularly those of green tea, have captured much interest, U.S. tea consumption has nearly doubled during the past decade. A wide variety of teas is available at several New York tea shops and restaurants, from India’s Darjeeling, oft prepared with cardamom and cloves, to China’s Lapsang Souchong. Taiwanese Bao Jong oolong, served by a tea sommelier at Heartbeat restaurant in Manhattan, commands more than $10 a pot. At the Urasenke Chanoyu Center on the Upper East Side, Japanese tea ceremony demonstrations and lessons are offered.

If you love tea, you can now share your passion with friends at one of New York’s newly chic tea bars. In the elegant T Salon Emporium, located at 20th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway, you’ll find Oriental teas served with light snacks. Come here to sip oolong tea in the late afternoon, or to attend one of the lectures on tea in a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere (the attractive salon offers book and poetry readings as well). You can also join the tea-of-the-month club.

Both Manhattan and Brooklyn now boast branches of Saint’s Alp Teahouse, a chain of more than 40 stores that has recently arrived from Taiwan. Here you’ll find tea drinks whipped together from fruit or tapioca, and such concoctions as green barley with plum juice, mung bean shakes, and litchi tea with nata de coco. “[The drinks] taste good and are good for you,” says the youthful staff at the Sunset Park, Brooklyn branch. “Anything with green barley juice is especially good for you if you’ve been up all night.” Teas are served with dainty fish , eel, rice, and noodle dishes. Their three brightly lit cafes now in the metroplitian area are invariably filled with young Chinese Americans, European tourists, and couples. In fact, these spots have become popular dating destinations. They’re not quite as intimate as European-style tea shops-you can remain noncommittal and simply order lunch, if you wish-and the atmosphere is relaxed, young, and on the go.

Toward the end of Prince Street in Flushing, Queens, right before the street meets 40th Road, there is Q Sweet House, a teahouse in the Taiwanese style offering bo ba nai cha, or milk tea with dark tapioca pearls, aka bubble tea. Fresh fruit juices such as honeydew or kumquat-lemon are blended with crushed ice and sago-tiny, chewy globes of what looks like rice but is actually a tapioca of sago starch. (The starch is extracted from sago palm trees and pressed through sieves to form drops that are then allowed to fall onto hot, shaking plates and rolled into round grains. The dark tapioca pearls served in milk teas are made from the starch of sweet potatoes and cassava tubers, and brown sugar.)

Confections such as yokan (an azuki-bean paste) and higashi rice-flour cakes are served with the powdered green tea known as matcha at Toraya teahouse. Indian confectionery, such as the sweetmeats once prepared for Mogul kings in 16th-century India, fill the shelves at bakeries such as Delhi Palace Sweets in Queens. Samosa dumplings, also often available at Indian bakeries, are the perfect snack for a cup of chai. Duck into one of Chinatown’s many bakeshops for soft, sweet coconut buns, fruit-filled cakes, and well, if not tea, then an iced coffee or lemon coke.