Mexico City, Canberra, Omaha: nine cities and three countries join the map

Nine cities joined our tea shop pages this week, and three of them put a new country on the map: Mexico, Kuwait and Cambodia. Each page carries the same things as the rest of the map: shops with a street address, the hours they publish, the price and pack size of the teas on their shelves in the local currency, and the counter we would send a friend to first. Fourteen of the new shops have a page of their own, with three picks from the shelf and one tea worth the trip. And Santiago, the oldest page in the queue, was reread from top to bottom: its main tea house repriced almost its whole list.

Mexico City is the biggest arrival, five tea houses in one page. La Esquina del Té has sold tea by the 100 g on Ámsterdam street in the Condesa since 2002, English Breakfast at MX$ 220 and a Darjeeling TGFOP at MX$ 320; Caravanserai on Orizaba pairs a French-style tea salon with 85 bulk teas, from an Earl Grey at MX$ 340 to a Gyokuro at MX$ 840 per 100 g; Izlah runs nine tea bars from Polanco to Coyoacán and sells every blend loose from 50 g, Jade Oolong at MX$ 325; Aloisia in Polanco sells origin teas from 30 g, a Sencha at MX$ 57 and a Tie Guan Yin at MX$ 81; and Euro Té keeps a showroom in the Condesa for a catalogue of more than 500 teas. Canberra splits its tea between the Canberra Centre, where The Tea Centre and T2 share a roof, and the suburbs: Adore Tea, a family company founded in 2006, blends more than 150 teas at its Mitchell warehouse and sells Ceylon Gold from A$ 7 for 20 g, and Waypoint Tea Co sells its dozen blends from a shopfront in Fyshwick three days a week. Kuwait City buys in its malls: TeaGschwendner's three shops price more than 300 loose teas by the 100 g, English Breakfast at KD 2.800, and Tavola stocks Mariage Frères tins at KD 11.500.

The United States adds three cities. Omaha has The Tea Smith, at Tower Plaza since 2004, with more than 150 loose teas by the ounce, from a US$ 1.68 Lapsang Souchong to a US$ 10.60 Tung Ting, and Artemis Tea & Botanical in the Blackstone District, which blends its own teas by hand and sells them in pouches from US$ 20. Petaluma buys its tea from a coffee roaster: Petaluma Coffee & Tea Company took over a tea importing business in 1998 and lists 55 loose teas by the quarter pound, Assam Golden Flowery BOP at US$ 4.75 and Bai Mudan at US$ 8.50, and Gathering Thyme sells single herbs by the ounce from US$ 2.50. Fort Worth lost its only tea room, Leaves on Magnolia Avenue, in August; what remains is The Spice & Tea Exchange in the Stockyards, Earl Grey at US$ 11.99 for a 1.15 oz tin, and World Market on West Freeway, with 70 PG Tips bags at US$ 11.99.

Mar del Plata has one tea house that is also a blend factory, OrienTés on Avenida Jara, whose imported teas sell by 25 g, from AR$ 5.000 for a Chinese oolong to AR$ 13.270 for a Darjeeling, and two dietéticas: Dietética del Puerto inside Mercado Puerto, with Greenhills black tea bags from AR$ 2.255 for 25, and Almacén Aurelia with its shelf of organic yerba from Misiones. Luleå shops along Storgatan: Thé-Shoppen, the loose-leaf specialist inside the Smedjan mall since 1993, keeps its prices at the counter, while Hälsokraft at Storgatan 48 B sells organic Hampstead English Breakfast at 65 kr for 20 bags and a Uji matcha at 299 kr for 30 g, and Åhléns has Teministeriet's Moomin teas at 149 kr for 20 pyramids. Phnom Penh prices its tea in US dollars: KHLA on Street 478 packs its own black, green and oolong in 10-bag boxes from US$ 1.70, with matcha at US$ 6.10 for 80 g, and Senteurs d'Angkor on Street 178 sells Cambodian black tea scented with jasmine or lotus at US$ 5 for 50 g.

Santiago was this week's maintenance page, and it needed it. La Tetería, the Providencia tea house open since 2007, has moved almost every price on its list since September: the Gyokuro Asahi went from CLP $18.450 to $22.150 for 50 g, the Ti Kuan Yin from $5.500 to $5.950, and the loose boldo from $4.650 to $4.950 for 40 g. Its Mi Lan Xiang is gone from the catalogue, so the dan cong on its page is now the Zhi Lan Xiang, sold in a 10 g sachet at $8.150, and eleven more teas join its list, among them a Darjeeling Okayti at $14.400, a Kukicha at $9.350, Jasmine Pearls at $21.000 and an Earl Grey Breakfast at $5.950, all for 50 g. Three teas sold out in every size came off the page. At Jumbo, the Twinings 100 g packs dropped from $9.340 to $9.090 and the Taragüi yerba from $3.730 to $3.630 for 500 g. Chile also gains a new shop outside the capital: La Casa del Té, with a shop and showroom on Cerro Alegre in Valparaíso, Assam TGFOP1 at $6.900 for 50 g.

Every one of these shops now appears in the “Where to find it” box of the teas it stocks. Open Tie Guan Yin, pick Chile or Mexico, and the box lists the shops there that carry it, with price and size: the exact tea first, close matches after, and tea houses with a counter ahead of online-only sellers. If you would rather start from the occasion than from the shop, teas by moment sorts the catalogue that way.

— The FindMeTea editorial team