Clear your sinuses with Turkish VapoRub-like tea
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Yakup Bey powdered tea flavors include mulberry, mango, apple, kiwi, pomegranate, eucalyptus and Red Bull. Photo: Monica Eng/Axios.
If you've ever shopped for carpets in a Turkish bazaar, you probably remember the delicious apple tea that merchants serve while you haggle.
Why it matters: A fascinating new Albany Park shop called Yakup Bey is selling that bewitching powdered brew along with others, including a Vicks VapoRub taste-alike that could clear the sinuses of everyone in the tri-state area.
The big picture: Yakup Bey shops — featuring handmade powdered teas, baklava, coffee, halvah, Turkish delight and nuts — have thrived in Turkey since 1924.
- But last year the founder's grandson, also named Yakup Bey, expanded to Chicago with mixed success, he tells Axios.
- After opening and closing some local shops, he's keeping one in Dunning and a new shop in an Albany Park strip mall near the Kedzie Brown Line. You won't find an online listing, but I promise it's there next to Tamales Mi Chula.
The experience: Expect hot tea samples — I tried pomegranate and lemon-eucalyptus (Vicks) — that you can sip with pastries in velvety blue chairs.
- Other flavors include kiwi, mulberry, banana, mango and even Red Bull!
The haul: I bought chocolate halwa (sesame paste candy) and two teas ($30 per pound) including the Vicks flavor for a pal with a cold who LOVED it.
Thanks to Axios reader Michael Phillips, who sent us a hot tip on this shop — along with some hot tea.
