A conversation with co-founders Lydia Lin & Sam Wang. Edited for brevity.

On the name Steep —

SW I really wanted another word that presents the action of making tea better than brew. The word steep came almost instantaneously, but it came very naturally because there's almost like an exact word in Chinese. That means exactly the same. It's also used to invoke slowly making the tea, being methodical while making tea. It’s easy for them to remember and the word best represented us.

On the presence of tea growing up —

LL I grew up in a Cantonese family and we always had tea for any family gatherings and also we would use tea for cooking. Tea has been a part of my culture and a memory since childhood. As I grew older, I felt more appreciation towards tea. I started learning from my parents on how to steep tea in a formal setting or even in a tea ceremonial setting. I found the whole process fascinating and I would love to continue sharing this passion with my friends and prospective customers.

SW For me, it's more from my dad, he makes a lot of tea. We always had a really large separate table for tea that he would host with his friends. He would just bring his friends over and they would literally sit there eating sunflower seeds and sipping tea and talk for hours upon hours on a weekend. I remember not enjoying it too much when I was younger, because when you were six or seven, you're not really into old man tea. And this is literally what Chinese you would call it because sometimes it’s very long, very boring. I didn't enjoy it at first, but I definitely felt a lot of love for it. When I got to my early thirties, I was getting to my older stage and as I was drinking tea, I really understood why my dad really enjoyed this.

On the challenge of running a tearoom —

SW Part of the biggest challenge doing tea here is that most of the production is out in Asia. When you have a tearoom in China or Taiwan or Japan or Korea, you probably can find tea maybe within two or three hours away by driving. So for us, it's looking for tea, tasting tea, giving feedback, and finally getting the tea we want in our hands. If we don't get to make a trip pack, sometimes it's a month or two long process, and then another month I'm waiting for the tea to arrive.

On what’s on the horizon —

SW I think the grand vision definitely is to expand on the idea. Steep is our first foray into the food and beverage industry. We want to expand on the idea of slow living, which we push a lot through Steep. We want to instill that into our future projects, which will include bars, restaurants, hospitality, obviously these are our grand goals, but they are definitely within our reach. We've run Steep for almost two years, we're starting to see the potential that we can actually get to. Definitely want to open different tea rooms in different cities down the line as well.

LL For the short-term goal, we are now open in full capacity. We want to try and hire more people to expand the team and also carry different seasonal teas for people to taste. So we will continue the program for tea and we will be adding a night program, to have a tea-based or tea-infused alcoholic beverages. Collaborations with local chefs and local talent and pop-ups will be for the remainder of the year.

SW I definitely want to be top of mind for a lot of people when it comes to tea. When people are thinking about tea in LA, they're like let's go to Steep. I want to create a community and get Chinatown lively again. Hopefully more Chinese Americans come back to Chinatown seeing that our projects are workable. Something modern, something cool can really thrive. We really want to put Chinese food, Chinese beverage in a different light. I think Steep is obviously the first step and hopefully down the line with our restaurants and bar ideas, we can continue this mission. It feels a little bit more approachable for everyone involved and it's not always considered this 5,000 year old culture. This culture could blend a little better with a modern world, but hopefully the way we do it might be approached a little differently.

On the tea Spring Orchid Oolong —

LL You may notice that this is a blend of oolong. It’s an oolong with the aglaia odorata flower. It’s from a Chinese perfume plant that reminds me of Asia. It’s a plant that I don’t necessarily see in the states, I’ve only seen it in Asia and China, Taiwan, Korea. It's really strong and fragrant, which is going to blend really well with the high altitude oolong tea. It’s always on the lighter side. In terms of flavor, it’s on the lighter side, but has a really strong fragrance. It's a light yellow instead of a darker color. Lightly roasted. Really refreshing. Reminds me of the jasmine fragrance in a summer night.

SW It smells like orchids. I think everything blends really well together. Our farmer was super high on it. He thought it was a really good blend. By now he's a good friend of ours. We actually have a lot of similar mindsets on how to approach tea. He and I got along really, really well. His family's been doing tea for five generations. His great-great grandfather was one of the original farmers that started planting oolong teas in China and Taiwan. His family has been around for a long time, so it’s good talking to him and learning a lot from him.