Hechalou

Everyone’s familiar with the concept of “a store within a store” in the sense of a smaller store renting space inside a bigger one, but over the past few years. Taiwanese tea shops have taken that idea in a different direction, creating miniature storefronts within their own plaza spaces. Outside, you see the plaza’s intact glass and metal structure; inside, you walk up to what looks like an old-fashioned street kiosk. YiFang Tea did it in Irvine back in 2021, and now Hechalou is doing it in Lakewood, next to Long Beach, at the Taiwanese chain’s first U.S. store.

“Nothing special” would be a kind way of describing the plaza Hechalou picked for this location – the storefront is tucked away in a nondescript brown brick and stucco plaza without any street frontage or discoverability. But once you get inside the all but anonymous space, you see what you might imagine to be a recreation of an old Taiwanese tea stall, fully enclosed with its own wooden walls and old glass windows, green and gold signage, and antique-ish looking light fixtures. For no particular reason, there’s an old telephone, gold metallic magnifying glass, and hourglass on a wooden table – a prop wooden table – below a gold Hechalou wall plaque. A wacky, 1940s- or 50s-style sign offers instructions on drinking tea.

It’s a lot to take in. Then, if you look closely, you’ll notice Hechalou was founded in 2019. In other words, all the wood and faux antiques are artifice – the equivalent of a startup portraying its latest invention as representing “50 years of work” when 50 people worked on it for a year.