LocaliTea (2025)
Edible Summits is curated by Lydia Kallipoliti & Xiaoxi Chen
in collaboration with Minhan Lin, Rudain Almulla, Sewon Min, & Yeonjin Kim
What does it truly mean to eat locally? LocaliTea reimagines locality not just as a matter of geography but as an intimate entanglement of bodies, environments, and food cycles. It challenges the conventional experience around tea drinking by integrating food production directly into consumption and transforming the table from a passive surface into an active participant in the local food cycle.
The design features four repurposed tables from our local space, each representing a phase of the food process: gardening, sorting, brewing, and decomposing. Tablecloths serve as architectural devices to transform ordinary tables into elements that explore food locality. There is no dedicated dining table; instead, dining spaces are embedded within these stations, blurring the boundary between consumption, production, and decomposition.
The gardening table introduces a new way to define local food—focusing not on native species but on plants that have adapted to New York City’s urban landscape. It invites diners to forage, fostering an awareness of shared microbiomes between humans and their environment. The sorting table exposes the labor behind food preparation while recognizing interspecies alliances—what we discard still holds value for others. The brewing table highlights the often-overlooked transformation of food through time. Brewing is not just preparation but an act of mediation—water extracts flavors, nutrients, and histories from plants. Here, diners witness the invisible process of metabolism, the way water dissolves, infuses, and transforms ingredients. The result is a brew whose flavor not only reflects its material origins but impacts our bodies physiologically. Finally, the decomposing table makes food waste visible, allowing discarded matter to imprint itself on tablecloths, leaving ever-changing patterns that reframe waste as an aesthetic and conceptual force.
By moving between these tables, the act of eating becomes communal, participatory, and forward-looking. Locality is no longer just about proximity—it is a shared, evolving practice sustained by the relationships we cultivate.
Edible Summits is curated by Lydia Kallipoliti & Xiaoxi Chen
in collaboration with Minhan Lin, Rudain Almulla, Sewon Min, & Yeonjin Kim
What does it truly mean to eat locally? LocaliTea reimagines locality not just as a matter of geography but as an intimate entanglement of bodies, environments, and food cycles. It challenges the conventional experience around tea drinking by integrating food production directly into consumption and transforming the table from a passive surface into an active participant in the local food cycle.
The design features four repurposed tables from our local space, each representing a phase of the food process: gardening, sorting, brewing, and decomposing. Tablecloths serve as architectural devices to transform ordinary tables into elements that explore food locality. There is no dedicated dining table; instead, dining spaces are embedded within these stations, blurring the boundary between consumption, production, and decomposition.
The gardening table introduces a new way to define local food—focusing not on native species but on plants that have adapted to New York City’s urban landscape. It invites diners to forage, fostering an awareness of shared microbiomes between humans and their environment. The sorting table exposes the labor behind food preparation while recognizing interspecies alliances—what we discard still holds value for others. The brewing table highlights the often-overlooked transformation of food through time. Brewing is not just preparation but an act of mediation—water extracts flavors, nutrients, and histories from plants. Here, diners witness the invisible process of metabolism, the way water dissolves, infuses, and transforms ingredients. The result is a brew whose flavor not only reflects its material origins but impacts our bodies physiologically. Finally, the decomposing table makes food waste visible, allowing discarded matter to imprint itself on tablecloths, leaving ever-changing patterns that reframe waste as an aesthetic and conceptual force.
By moving between these tables, the act of eating becomes communal, participatory, and forward-looking. Locality is no longer just about proximity—it is a shared, evolving practice sustained by the relationships we cultivate.