"What you get in a bag is dust," says Wahl, who started importing tea grown in the Himalayas three years ago under the company name Cynthia's Premium Teas.

"Loose tea is a completely different, superior product," says Wahl.

"The difference is huge and once you've opened up your palate to loose tea, it's hard to go back to bags."

Unlike local shops such as Premium Steap on South 18th Street and House of Tea on Fabric Row, which specialize in loose tea for home use, Wahl doesn't do retail.

And she is more than just a purveyor. Wahl is a tea sommelier - advising clients, such as the Borgata Hotel Casino's new boutique hotel the Water Club, about the varieties of teas that might best suit customers at breakfast, poolside or after dinner.

And she mixes varieties to create proprietary, one-of-a-kind blends. Her "Cynthia's Blend," for example, is a mix of Assam, Darjeeling and Ceylon teas, packaged in tins and sold at None Such Farm in Buckingham and the Ginger Tree in Perkasie.

She also creates personalized tea services for restaurants, hotels, colleges and tea salons - bringing in the right equipment such as new machines made to brew loose tea properly in quantity; specialty and classic teapots; infusers, ladles, cozies to keep the pots warm; and staff training to ensure that the venue's tea service stays top-notch.

Wahl, who was raised in a Lipton-by-the-bag household, started drinking loose tea at home about 15 years ago.

As she became more discriminating about taste, she found herself miffed that so many fine restaurants offer little more than a cup of water and a box of bagged herbal teas. That's when the idea of starting her own business took hold.

Good tea starts with pure water that is boiled and poured into a prepared pot, she says, and the tea leaves should have room to expand in the pot.

Wahl trained with the Specialty Tea Institute and spent time on tea estates in Asia, learning how such teas are grown in bushes, plucked sparingly (just the top two leaves and one bud from each bush go into specialty teas), withered to release the moisture, and rolled to oxidize the leaves.

Wahl buys much of her tea directly from a particular estate in Sri Lanka, as well as from brokers.

Among her other clients are restaurants such as Earl's Prime in Peddler's Village and Izakaya at the Borgata in Atlantic City; museums such as the Pearl S. Buck House in Perkasie and the Mercer Museum in Doylestown; and universities such as Villanova and Fairleigh Dickinson.

Creating the right tea service was especially important for chef Michael Schulson, who worked and studied in Tokyo before opening Izakaya, his Japanese restaurant at the Borgata, in July.

The quality of the tea and the manner in which it was served would be key, because "the Japanese drink tea before and after each meal," Schulson said.

So Wahl designed a menu that features Sencha, a green tea with needle-shaped leaves; Genmaicha, a brown rice tea; Royal Yunnan, a black tea with a spicy-flowery taste and deep copper color; Golden Monkey, prized for its sweet cocoa fragrance; and Moroccan Mint, a gunpowder green tea infused with spearmint and peppermint leaves.

The tea is presented on a silver platter, each type displayed in a closed box. Customers are encouraged to open the boxes and smell the teas separately before choosing. The server ladles the leaves into an empty, warmed pot and adds the hot water tableside, leaving a sand-timer behind so the customer will know when to pour.

"Nobody wants to be taught - about tea or anything else - at a restaurant," Schulson says. "But they do want to be exposed to new tastes, and we're trying to do that in a fun way."

Wahl says learning to make tea with loose leaves is worth the effort.