A trip to S.F.’s KitTea cat cafe

If you’d think that I might have a few opinions about KitTea, San Francisco’s first Japanese-style “cat cafe,” which opened in Hayes Valley this week, you’d be mostly right.

KitTea is a “top-of-the-line cat lounge.” For $25 an hour, with a reservation, one can enjoy the privilege of sipping premium tea and stroking a few kitties in a sterile room walled off from both the reception area and the tea area. Your tea and snacks are slipped to you through a small slot in the wall.

If this idea makes you feel a little lonely, you can adopt a cat — KitTea is partnered with two local rescues, Give Me Shelter and Wonder Cat Rescue. Odds are, though, if you live in San Francisco, you’re out of luck — your landlord won’t allow such a thing, so you have to make another reservation and pay another $25 and cry when you leave the cats again.

If you’re a regular column reader, you know that this is the point at which I normally start wringing my hands over the disconnection, entitlement and late-capitalist deluge that this setup reveals about contemporary urban life.

I’m afraid I couldn’t quite measure up this week, folks. You see — I’m allergic to cats.

So instead of contemplating my future pontifications about KitTea, I was ducking into the Walgreens three blocks away on Van Ness Avenue. Instead of making observations, I was wandering helplessly through those litter-strewn aisles, calling out to phantom assistants: “Where’s the Benadryl?”

Nearly every product in the Van Ness Walgreens, including antihistamine, is trapped behind a locked plastic case.

I know that the corner of Van Ness and Market is no playground, but that particular Walgreens must have more loss prevention agents than cashiers. What should have been a 10-minute transaction morphed into a half-hour odyssey as I hunted for someone who could free my drugs.

“Don’t swallow them all at once,” said the cashier who eventually showed up.

“Oh, I think it’ll take two tries to get them all down,” I told her. She laughed, but I meant it, shoving in a handful as I walked to Gough Street.

Feeling dizzy for the rest of the day could have its benefits, I thought to myself — I spend more than enough time upright as it is.

KitTea is clean, styled with Pinterest-ready minimalist decor, and populated by earnest young people in a rainbow of skinny jeans. I put in an order for tea (matcha, in an attempt to balance out my potential poisoning with antioxidants) and talked to a sweet, rosy-cheeked “cat wrangler” with a long Heidi braid. A bright-eyed orange tabby had strolled over to peer at me, and the wrangler was excited.

“I see that you’ve met May,” she said. “She’s a rare female orange cat. She was really shy when she first came to us, but she’s really warmed up. She’s really sweet now.”

The wrangler leaned over to stroke May, who looked back and forth between the two of us. I tried to direct May’s attention — mental and physical — toward the handler. Like any self-respecting cat, May was having none of my desires. She kept mewling and brushed herself against my leg.

“She likes you,” the wrangler said. She stroked May behind the ears. I smiled and focused on inching my calf away from the inside of my pants. I’d just learned another good reason not to wear skinny jeans.

The wrangler mentioned that the cafe had an acclimation room.

“Oh, for customers?” I asked, looking around hungrily for the space.

She gave me a strange look. “No, for the cats.”

Right.

“Well, what’s great is that we have a medical-grade HEPA filter system in here,” said KitTea’s founder, the 29-year-old Courtney Hatt, with sympathy when I told her about my allergy. “It’s a regulation from the health department, one of the many that we had to fulfill. It should help, though.”

Hatt told me more about her business. Apparently I’m the only person in San Francisco who won’t be frequenting the cat cafe on a regular basis — KitTea came about through crowdfunding, and Hatt raised $60,000 in 27 days.

“I always point to that whenever someone says this is a weird idea,” she said. “This really came about because the community wanted it.”

KitTea had nine cat adoptions before it even opened, and Hatt concluded our conversation by telling me about all of the studies showing that I’d live longer if I had a cat — Zen, lower blood pressure, stress relief, less risk of a heart attack.

I listened to her with the patient resignation of someone who has asked for advice that she’ll never take. I adore cats, but will never own one.

So I walked out of KitTea, feeling a little sadder, until the outside breeze cleared my nostrils.

Startled, I opened my lungs and let the urine-soaked air of lower Hayes Valley rush in. I felt lifted, light. Suddenly, there was no more danger of sneezing, wheezing or bloodshot eyes.

The cat cafe made me feel Zen, all right — after I left it.

Caille Millner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: cmillner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @caillemillner