Inside Boulder's stunning, one-of-a-kind teahouse | Craving Colorado

BOULDER • A teahouse here can leave an impression similar to the mountains, Rory Martinelli says.

Just like he admires the finer points of the Flatirons and rolling terrain around town, so he admires the colorful, intricate patterns painted across the walls and ceiling of Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse. He has been around the business most of his life, since his parents started it 26 years ago.

“When you’re looking at this kind of artwork, you can tell the level of the artist by how fine those details are,” Martinelli says, admiring it all during a recent lunch rush.

It’s a rush like any other for breakfast, tea time and dinner — constant.

Indeed, Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse is as much an attraction as the mountains.

The teahouse, by its description, offers "an extraordinary setting that is unlike any other in our hemisphere."

It is an ornate, manmade landmark to match Boulder’s natural ones — an equally captivating sight here between a rose garden and melodious creek. It is the work of more than 40 artistic hands that went to work halfway across the world in the late 1980s.

From Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the small, mountainous country between China and Afghanistan, came the pieces to be reassembled in Boulder. The pieces together “offer a glimpse into the lavish Persian Empire,” reads a brochure: the carved, ceramic panels on the exterior depicting the Tree of Life; the cedar columns inside similarly, delicately carved; the oil paintings telling more Old World stories in a panorama soaring all around tea-drinking patrons.

At the center is a sun-splashed fountain — mimicking reflecting pools of traditional teahouses — surrounded by copper sculptures telling the tales of “The Seven Beauties.” The tales “are closely related to popular folklore,” the brochure continues, “and inspire honesty, virtue and kindness, while denouncing arrogance, greediness and treachery.”

Proprietors maintain a purpose behind the rose garden, too: It’s meant “to look unplanned in the Tajik tradition: not orderly rows but a sensuous celebration of color and fragrance, creating an intimate atmosphere.”

It’s an atmosphere that Martinelli’s family has fostered over the teahouse’s quarter century. Martinelli’s father, Lenny, is the owner and executive chef of a local restaurant group that grew from Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse, established in 1998.

As the cities on either side of the globe were arranging the structure, Lenny “looked at it and said, that would be a cool restaurant,” his son says.

Boulder officials agreed to the pitch. It would be a restaurant to showcase the kind of cuisine that inspired Lenny Martinelli’s early culinary track: cuisine from around the world.

So it is at the teahouse, where plov represents something you’d eat in Dushanbe and other places of Tajikistan: rice, beef, veggies and spices. The menu bounces between a Mediterranean salad to a Slavic salad; from Mexican chilaquiles to Asian curry; from Austrian crepes to Korean pan-fried noodles; from an Italian panino to a Moroccan steak sandwich and much, much more.

The tea menu is a far-flung tour as well. It’s a tour of the senses: bold and sweet, floral and fruity, nutty and piney. The black and green teas might be familiar, the yellow and white teas less so, and even less so rooibos tea (“redbush” from South Africa) and pu’er tea (a fermenting tradition out of China’s Yunnan Province).

“It’s all following along with that theme of cultural exchange,” Martinelli says.

That theme inspired Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse’s creation.

The origin is traced to 1983, when a small group of locals got to thinking about a show of peace near the height of the Cold War. The group sought a sister city in the Soviet Union. Then under Russian control before the collapse of 1991, Tajikistan’s capital city was seen as a fit for its Boulder-like mountains and shared place on the 40th parallel.

Dushanbe’s mayor visited Boulder in 1987, followed by Boulder’s mayor heading to Dushanbe. Thus, a sister city program was formalized, giving way to exchanges of tourists, students and professionals.

And giving way to a gift: an exquisite teahouse.

It’s said master craftsmen spent two years preparing the pieces, to be shipped in 200 crates from the Gulf of Finland. The pieces crossed the Baltic Sea and Atlantic Ocean before a cross-country rail trip to Denver and truck ride to Boulder. The rebuilt structure would be a bold symbol of collaboration.

It continues today as part of what Martinelli calls “the big ongoing process: maintaining things and refurbishing things constantly.”

The struggle, he says, is preserving the cultural, time-honored approach to the art that he sees fading. The old way is carried on by the grandson of the teahouse’s original lead artisan.

Maruf Mirakhmatov has traveled from afar to touch up the paint. Martinelli always looks forward to the next visit.

“It feels really nice to have a friend across the world,” he says.

On the menu

Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse's food changes with the seasons — an ever-changing array of dishes derived from flavors of the world.

On the breakfast side ($10-$13), Kookoo Sabzi has been a favorite: a Persian herb omelet of baba ghanoush, crispy rice, walnut and naan. Tea-infused creativity meets the Lapsang Souchong Benedict: eggs benedict of lapsang souchong tea sausage and green tea hollandaise. In another favorite, pancakes are made with the teahouse's specialty chai.

Brunch goes best with some small plates ($8-$11). Among them at last check: crepes with sweet cheese, apricot cherry chutney, mint and walnut; samosas packed with spiced potato, onion, peas and mango chutney; and bao buns stuffed with slow-roasted pork and a sweet and savory sauce.

Several specialties cross over for lunch and dinner ($15-$20). That includes the Spicy Indonesian Peanut Noodles with choice of chicken, tofu or shrimp. Those are picked as well for the equally popular curry. Another menu mainstay: the Mediterranean salad often paired with salmon.

The teahouse honors its Tajikistan origins with kabobs of lamb, bell peppers, onion and dried fruit. The other regional classic is plov. Here, rice is served with beef, a spiced medley of carrot, onion and chickpea, a tomato-cucumber salad, dried fruit and naan.

Rory Martinelli, of the owning family, loves the Persian Khoresh Fesenjan: chicken with a spiced, sticky sauce, walnuts, pomegranate and white rice. A more familiar favorite: the Cuban sandwich, which meets a twist with tea-rubbed pork.

At last check, dinner exclusives ($17-$25) included a take on Korean bulgogi and New York steak, a Portuguese pork chop and Thai-inspired salmon.