GUILDERLAND — Teavana, which is owned by Starbucks, has closed at Crossgates Mall. The space it occupied, on the second floor, will soon be filled by a new branch of a local tea shop, Short and Stout, of Guilderland.

Short and Stout opened its tea “lounge” on Ardsley Road, across from the Westmere firehouse, four-and-a-half years ago, owner Joyce Zacharewicz said on Monday.

Starbucks announced in July 2017 that it was closing all of its 379 Teavana retail locations, with the majority closing by spring 2018.

“With Teavana leaving, the mall contacted us,” Zacharewicz said, “to see if wanted to go in there. Sometimes you can’t say no to opportunities.”

She is confident the store will do well there because, although Teavana had national advertising, Zacharewicz said, she has loyal customers who like to support local businesses.

She and her husband are local, too. They live in Westmere and their three daughters attend Westmere Elementary School.

The couple started out, six or seven years ago, selling 47 different kinds of loose tea at local craft fairs, she said, and grew from there.

Short and Stout is taking possession of the space on March 1, Zacharewicz said. At about 600 square feet, she said, the Crossgates location is a good deal smaller than the 1,500-square-foot tea lounge.

She hopes to open in the third week of March. She wants to open before April 1, “because macarons will be good for Easter.”

The mall shop will sell loose teas, tea accessories, and macarons.

“We will also have the ability to brew tea there, hot or iced, to go,” Zacharewicz said.

Short and Stout will sell tea lattes and will also offer samples of several brewed teas. Zacharewicz plans to train her staff at the Crossgates store in different types of brewing, such as making oolong tea in the traditional kung fu method, or preparing frothy matcha green tea with a bamboo whisk.

Zacharewicz may also sell “popping boba,” which she described as juice balls that are the size of caviar eggs that can be added to iced tea.

Currently, the tea lounge offers 10 or 12 flavors of macaron, Zacharewicz said, but the Crossgates Mall shop will have more flavors and will offer them in gift boxes. She will continue to get them from a French pastry chef in New York City. Macarons are among her most popular items at the tea lounge, she said.

The mall store will not have a full kitchen and will not sell Short and Stout’s popular “bubble tea,” Zacharewicz said.

“If people want full bubble tea, they will have to come to the lounge,” she said, adding that she wants to make sure the two stores do not compete against one another.