Drink up! | Urban Tea Town offers not just tea and coffee, but an experience

Customers enjoy tea and coffee at the Urban Tea Town restaurant on Thursday in Texarkana, Ark. Urban Tea Town, at 1103 Arkansas Blvd., offers 50 loose leaf teas and coffee roasted by Ouachita Roasting Co. in Mena, Ark.
Customers enjoy tea and coffee at the Urban Tea Town restaurant on Thursday in Texarkana, Ark. Urban Tea Town, at 1103 Arkansas Blvd., offers 50 loose leaf teas and coffee roasted by Ouachita Roasting Co. in Mena, Ark.

When a customer enters Urban Tea Town on Arkansas Boulevard, they see comfortable chairs, striking art and skilled servers preparing beverages and pastries for the relaxing customers.

No one seems to be in a hurry to leave and there is a sense of calm throughout the place as patrons settle in with their steaming beverages. This is just the way that the proprietor, Rebecca Leighton, intended.

"I came up through 20 years in academia," said Leighton, "That realm is one where we tend to live life out of our heads. After a set of life experiences that caused me to question what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, I realized I was seeking the guidance of my heart. So there came a time where I knew I needed to move on."

Thus was the genesis of Urban Tea Town, an intentional pun hearkening to the Twin Cities. Conceptualized as a tea (and later coffee) shop, Leighton made it clear that her place isn't just about selling beverages.

"My shop is intended to be an experience," she said. "I am an educator by background and experience and wanted to extend that to this place. That goal informs everything we do here. I want to educate Texarkana about tea, but I've also stumbled onto coffee as well. Hats off to my supplier and roaster, Ouachita Coffee Roasters in Mena, Arkansas."

Urban Tea Town is Leighton's first business, and she had a template she was going for when coming up with her enterprise.

"Mule Kick in Magnolia, Arkansas, was a big influence on Urban Tea Town," she said. "They are coffee educators. Their deep knowledge of the trade set the tone for what I wanted to do. They are training me and my baristas in how to do the coffee side properly."

But naturally, with the name, comes the other beverage, tea.

"I'm taking the same approach with tea as I did with technology (her educational specialty)," she said. "Go deep with the beverage and pass on the knowledge. For example, I advise tea drinkers not to boil out of tea bags, rather, do it loose leaf. You get a better flavor that way."

The atmosphere at Urban Tea Town is casual, laid-back, intended to encourage patrons to take a load off and stay a spell.

"This is not the typical drive-through coffee experience," she said. "Not a place you rush in and out of with coffee or tea. This is a place where you can sit down comfortably, take your time, put your phone away, set up your beverage and enjoy time with a book, family and friends."

There is a sense of community around the place, built around slowly imbibing coffee, tea, literature and art.

"We fully support local artists," she said. "Right now, we are featuring the acrylics of Emily Newsome, as well as Dean Lynn and his renditions of Texarkana landmarks. There will be others as well as time goes on."

Leighton also wants to support book reading here.

"I want to reintroduce Texarkana to great literature," she said. "Get them back to reading (no biographies or self-help books). We have a tiny library with a take-one, leave-one policy. Eventually, we want to get a book club going and conversations about books. So come by, order a beverage, sit down and relax, take it all in. You might even learn something."

Visit Urban Tea Town on Facebook, or visit their location on Arkansas Boulevard, right next to Old Tyme Burger Shoppe.

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