DETROIT, MI - Joseph Uhl poured countless tiny, one-ounce portions of precisely measured and steeped tea well into the evening Thursday, but even after four hours of service at his "Tea Den" he could have kept going.

It wasn't just because of the caffeine, either.

"Offering these teas, this is poetry, you know?" Uhl said just before packing up his pop-up shop set up inside Salt & Cedar print shop located at 2448 Riopelle Street in Detroit's Eastern Market.

The Tea Den, which opened Thursday, offered a collection of five different loose-leaf teas ranging from fresh, delicate white tea to smoky and strong oolong, all of which Uhl hand-selected and imported from China.

Uhl started his company, Joseph Wesley Black Tea, in July 2013 after he left his job as an attorney. He offers exclusively black teas for sale from India and China that he personally selects on trips to private estates and villages where the tea is grown.

"Some guys go and buy a Corvette when they have a midlife crisis," he said. "I started a tea company."

Most recently, in April 2014, Uhl spent three weeks in China, sometimes visiting two sources per day, to test numerous selections of tea to find the right leaves to bring back to the states.

But his affinity for tea began before he left his job as an attorney.

After graduating high school in 1992, Uhl spent time in Malaysia and traveled throughout Asia. Uhl said he never drank tea before that trip, but tea culture is impossible to avoid in any of the Asian countries.

Plus, the tea was amazing.

When he returned to the region in the early 2000s to teach in China, his love for tea culture grew even more.

According to Uhl, the most extraordinary teas, like those offered at the Tea Den, leave a fresh, minty aftertaste in the back of the throat. Such teas have idiosyncratic flavor profiles comparable to artisan coffees, Uhl said.

His main goal with the Tea Den is to get Metro Detroiters to think about tea in a different way, and grow tea culture in the city.

"Tea is not genteel," Uhl said.

Connecting tea to Detroit

During his travels, Uhl encountered tea shops that were like some of the most boisterous bars in America. People "pounded their tea" while arguing and having animated, unrefined conversation, he said.

Tea isn't the delicate health food that people think it is, and the Tea Den is a way of "just getting people to think about tea in a different way."

It's getting rid of the false stigma of pomposity attached to tea that will help tea take root in Detroit, Uhl said, which is important because tea culture can connect to Detroit in a special way.

Before starting Joseph Wesley Tea, Uhl toyed with the idea of starting a distillery and a hard cider business, but nothing really connected him to the city in the way that tea has, he said.

"For me, living in the city for as long as I did, you kind of feel a social responsibility," Uhl said. While so many craft options like coffee, beer, liquor or hard cider have deep, rich histories, tea's cultural history is astronomically deeper.

Offering Detroiters the chance to settle down for an afternoon over tea, which leaves the consumer feeling energized and clear-minded, was the best way Uhl could think to give back to the city.

"It connects you to history. The beauty of tea is really just sitting, sharing and telling stories" which billions of people over thousands of years have done, Uhl said.

While places like Starbucks and Teavana definitely expose people to loose leaf tea, Uhl said the blends offered typically aren't highlighting the true flavors of the leaves.

"That's part of what's unique about the Tea Den...the rare, hard-to-get tea."

Taking tea further

Thursday, Uhl served five teas to a small group of people: a white tea, a green tea, two black teas and an oolong tea.

He steeped all of them at varying water temperatures and for different lengths of time. Even the same tea leaves steeped with slight changes offered up a ranging of flavors.

The white, green and oolong tea served were from Uhl's private stash; his company only sells black tea ranging in price from $10 to $15 for 50 grams of loose tea.

Joseph Wesley Black Tea is sold by 30 businesses around Metro Detroit, including Pure Detroit and Anthology Coffee as well as online.

Uhl plans to offer hand-crafted gift boxes starting Nov. 19 when Salt & Cedar hosts a kick-off benefit with proceeds going to Freedom House Detroit.

For now, Uhl said the Tea Den will be held at Salt & Cedar every Thursday and Friday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

For Uhl, the little, intimate pop-up is a lot like the pockets of growth and resurgence seen throughout the city.

"You get such an emotional response from people who have to defend the city" against national criticism, he said.

The Tea Den embodies that love of the city and the new life pumping into Detroit "like a flower poking through the cracks of the sidewalk."

Uhl said sharing tea is a metaphor for distributing and sharing life and good, and he hopes that through educating on tea culture he can help enrich the community.

Updates on the Ten Den will be posted to Joseph Wesley Black Tea's Facebook and Twitter pages.

Ian Thibodeau is the entertainment and business reporter for MLive Detroit. He can be reached at ithibode@mlive.com, or follow him on Twitter.