Fifteen more cities for tea lovers, from Delhi to Auckland

Last Sunday we opened these pages with twelve cities. This week the map grew faster than we expected: fifteen more, on four continents, from Mumbai to Auckland, each one a place where readers of FindMeTea live. The rule has not changed. Our favorite tea shops are the ones we would send a friend to, with the counter, the neighborhood and what to buy there, and nothing we could not confirm ourselves.

Start in Delhi, where India's tea boutiques began. Mittal Teas in Sunder Nagar Market is the classic stop: a family merchant buying at auction and directly from gardens in Darjeeling, Assam, Sikkim and the Nilgiris, and weighing it out by the 50 g so that trying a new estate is an easy decision. Sancha, the house that started as Aap Ki Pasand in Old Delhi in 1981, still keeps its tea gallery in Daryaganj and has boutiques in Saket and Chanakyapuri; in Mumbai it has three more, in Kala Ghoda, Bandra West and Lower Parel, with tastings at the counter. Mumbai also has Tea Culture of the World, a brand founded in 2010 that sells from counters inside gourmet supermarkets, and Chaayos, which packs the city's chai habit to take home. If you have never had a second-flush Darjeeling sold under its garden's own name, these are the places.

Spain gave us four cities in one week. In Málaga two shops sit a few minutes apart in the old town: La Tienda del Té has been weighing tea on Calle San Juan since 1994, and Golden Tips, on Calle Especería behind the Atarazanas market, keeps single-estate lots you would not expect in a city this size. Madrid has Violet Tea on the Arganzuela riverside for the long origin list, from Lung Ching to Silver Needles, and Teacup in Chamberí, a minute from Cuatro Caminos, for the everyday tins. In Barcelona, Čaj Chai, in the medieval Jewish quarter, is run by a Czech importer who has numbered every lot since 2004; you can sit for gong fu at the counter or leave with six grams of Wuyi rock tea. Sans & Sans, in the Born, has sold the classics by the 100 g since 1993. And Valencia, with Cafeto & Camellia in Extramurs and La Petite Planèthé by the cathedral, sells its leaf in 50 g steps, which makes it one of the cheapest cities in the country to try something new.

In the United States we went from the lake to the Pacific. Chicago has a tea sommelier's shop two blocks from Michigan Avenue with more than 200 pure teas and, up in Andersonville, Eli Tea Bar, where open-mic nights share the room with a Milk Oolong. Philadelphia keeps two of its three counters inside Reading Terminal Market, a block apart; The Head Nut sells by the ounce, so a first ounce of gunpowder costs a couple of dollars, and The Random Tea Room in Northern Liberties opens Thursday to Sunday with a garden out back and teas it names itself. Minneapolis fits its loose leaf into a ten-minute walk between Uptown and Lowry Hill East, and at Sencha Tea Bar every tea is sold as a one-ounce sample first.

Seattle was the week's longest page. The Perennial Tea Room has been a few steps off the Pike Place Market floor since 1990 and is the easiest place in town to buy one ounce of many things at once; in Ballard, Floating Leaves buys Taiwanese lots straight from growers and Miro Tea keeps a Wuyi rock oolong shelf worth the trip; by the Chinatown Gate, Seattle Best Tea has poured free tastings since 1996. San Diego runs from PARU (La Jolla), which stone-mills its matcha on a Kyoto mill, to a teahouse inside an artisan gallery in Ocean Beach that sells by the gram. Dallas has Rakkasan Tea in Deep Ellum, started by two Army veterans who import only from estates in current and former conflict zones, and two weekend stalls under one roof at the Dallas Farmers Market. And Portland is where American specialty tea grew up: Smith Teamaker, founded in 2009 by the man behind Stash and Tazo, The Tao of Tea on SE Belmont since 1997, and Portal Tea, which began as Tea Chai Té in 2003 and keeps a second shop inside a 1920 railroad caboose.

Two smaller cities closed the week. Innsbruck fits its tea into a ten-minute walk: House of Tea & Coffee has traded on Kiebachgasse since 1999 with more than 400 teas and a garden where matcha latte is served, teein brings its Tyrolean teas and spices from Schwaz to Maximilianstraße, and a Sonnentor store at the entrance to the old town covers the organic everyday shelf. In Auckland the tea is sold by merchants rather than boutiques: Chapter in Mt Eden Village has weighed tea since 1995 and added romance novels in 2005, Tea Total holds tastings of twenty teas at its North Shore store, Coffee and Tea Lovers has supplied the city's tea rooms since 2000, and Teatera, a Chinese tea studio in Mount Roskill, is visited by booking.

Sunday is also when we go back to a page we already have. This week it was Montevideo, our own city. Every price at Sinfonía, Reencontraté and El Naranjo was checked again and none had moved; the three shops are open at the same addresses and hours. Reencontraté added seven teas to our list, among them a stone-ground Japanese matcha and a black tea scented with rose petals. Sinfonía's pure white, yellow and pu-erh are still waiting for stock, and the Carrasco shop with thirteen oolongs on its menu still shows no prices, so it stays as a place to visit rather than a list to compare.

Every tea in our catalogue now points to a shop in these cities. Open Dong Ding and the page tells you where to find it near you, in Seattle, Barcelona or Innsbruck, at the price the shop published. If your city is not here yet, it is probably on its way; until then the teas by moment pages are a good place to start.

— The FindMeTea editorial team