The multi-talented, ultra-connected king of cool tells us all about his latest venture.

&quot;I&#39;m a <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/digital-issues/letter-from-the-editor-we-love-ny-april-2019">New Yorker</a> and I&#39;ve lived here since I was a&nbsp;little,&nbsp;little, little boy,&quot; Waris Ahluwalia sighs over a cup of tea&mdash;his company&#39;s own blend&mdash;in an office building in SoHo on a recent afternoon. &quot;And I get tired of people saying, &#39;New York&#39;s great, but&nbsp;the quality of life is terrible,&#39; and it&#39;s sort of like, why don&#39;t we do&nbsp;something to improve that?&quot;&nbsp;

There is a list of things any New Yorker can probably put together in under five minutes to improve the city these days, and none of the action items would involve opening a tea shop. But that&#39;s why Ahluwalia&#39;s roundabout way of thinking has landed him where he is today. Originally from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the multi-hyphenate&nbsp;creative (or &quot;storyteller&quot; as he calls himself) has had an eclectic life jam-packed with one enviable adventure after another: landing a Gap campaign alongside Cyndi Lauper and Tony Bennett; appearing in Wes Anderson and <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/coach-taps-spike-lee-for-new-short-film">Spike Lee</a> movies; procuring a retail space in the Gritti Palace. &nbsp;

But, Ahluwalia explains, about five years ago, he was starting to get a little burnt out. Or as he summarizes it: &quot;I felt a philosophical disconnect in my life.&quot;&nbsp;

Selling $60,000 rare pieces of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/fine-jewelry-trends-haute-couture-spring-2020">jewelry</a> (&quot;and that was the market value of those earrings&quot;) just wasn&#39;t cutting it for him anymore&mdash;at least not on a certain cognitive&nbsp;level. So Ahluwalia pulled his designs from stores (Bergdorf Goodman, Barney&#39;s, and&nbsp;Harrods&nbsp;all carried the jewelry). &quot;Most people go about doing the thing they do everyday and they don&#39;t question it,&quot; he says sagely. &quot;I felt like my time was done and I had to find something that spoke to a larger audience.&quot;&nbsp;

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It didn&#39;t take him long: Ahluwalia revisited a project he had worked on in 2010, a ten-day pop-up tea shop he had done on The&nbsp;Highline, for which he had even found master craftsmen from India in the process.&nbsp;

&quot;I  hadn&#39;t intended to keep it going, but we already had the answer right there,&quot; he says. &quot;So I started sourcing teas again.&quot;&nbsp;

Now, his specialized tea blends (seven in total, including &quot;Love Conquers All&quot; and &quot;Sweet Clarity&quot;) can be found in select locations like the Marlton Hotel and <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/travel-living/chateau-marmont-90th-anniversary-spring-issue-2019">Chateau Marmont</a>. But it&#39;s House of Waris, Ahluwalia&#39;s simple but soothing 130-square-foot teashop that&nbsp;opened in November, that&nbsp;really introduced the brand to a wider audience. On the same Chelsea property as The Orchard Townhouse, the new farm-to-table restaurant from The Fat Radish Group, Ahluwalia calls the petite space, originally built in 1830, &quot;an oasis&quot; and his &quot;gift to a city that has given me so much.&quot;&nbsp;

 &quot;You can come get a tea; you can come get a Kombucha on tap; you can come get your matcha, your golden milk,&quot; Ahluwalia says of the environment he hopes House of Waris will cultivate.&nbsp;&quot;Or on the weekends,&nbsp;you can come meet with an herbalist who can make a custom blend that you can take home with you.&nbsp;There is nowhere on this island where you can do that.&quot; But admittedly, it&#39;s not entirely altruistic, as he laughs:&nbsp;&quot;I&#39;m creating a product to address my own need and my own stress.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Spilling the Tea with Waris Ahluwalia

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