Changes At Japanese Tea House Gen Sou En In Coolidge Corner

BROOKLINE, MA — Gen Sou En we hardly knew ye. The modern Japanese tea house closed this week, just eight months after its grand opening in Coolidge Corner. But lest you worry another bank will be popping up on Harvard Street, fret not. The owner and manager of the tea house say this is only temporary.

The plan?

"We are renovating so that we can become a full service restaurant," said General Manager Chelsea Brewster.

The restaurant will be complete with a bar and will serve lunch and dinner, and even accept reservations, in addition to continuing with a tea house cafe and bakery, she said.

Construction started Monday to upgrade the kitchen.

"We hope it's only going to take two weeks," said Owner Haruo Abe. "It's not a huge change, but this will allow us to do more interesting cooking, so to speak."

The green and matcha teas, the baked goods, and breakfast items will still be available at the counter and the new place will have quick-service seating. But the full-service expansion comes in response to customer feedback, since Brewster came on in April, the two told Patch in a phone interview.

"Weekends are still crazy, but we also felt there was a need still out there, and we kept getting phone calls for reservations," said Abe.

There have been some hiccups with the bakery and with staff turnover. And customer complaints about how long it takes to get the tea to customers after they order were not lost on them, either, said Abe. But, he said, they're building off of lessons learned.

They've taken steps to address timing issues, and have brought in brewer equipment and are working on finding more ways to speed things up.

"Hopefully, we'll continue to improve the time it takes us to serve our guests without compromising the quality of the tea," he said.

But overall, he said he's pleasantly surprised with the community response to the space and the tea, adding the tea house has served more than 35,000 cups of green tea since they opened.

The new menu is set to have a number of "tea-inspired" items on it, said Brewster, from the dishes (there will be a green tea quinoa salad) to the cocktails (look for a strawberry matcha martini, made with strawberry pure with matcha simple syrup and sake).

"All of us want to thank all the guests that have come here and loved our tea house," said Abe. "We are making a commitment to better serve the community."

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Photo by Jenna Fisher/Patch Staff