Tea shops
Our favorite tea shops, city by city
Places we'd recommend to a friend.
Uruguay
United States
New York
2 tea shops→
New York's two tea institutions sit a few blocks apart in lower Manhattan and could not be more different. In SoHo, a family tea company sells its tins in a bright modern shop; in Greenwich Village, a corner store that has been weighing out tea since 1895 still does it from bins and jars. Both ship across the country, so what you taste in the shop is easy to reorder.
Washington, DC
4 tea shops→
Washington's tea shopping clusters around Dupont Circle, where three of these four shops sit within a fifteen-minute walk: a Chinese tea house and gallery that moved here after twenty-five years in Georgetown, a shop selling loose leaf by the ounce on Connecticut Avenue, and a Fujian grower's own counter inside a hotel on Embassy Row. The fourth, the city's best-known tea company, keeps its retail shop in Penn Quarter two doors from its teahouse. Most shops sell in 2 oz increments, so a first visit can cover four teas without much outlay.
Los Angeles
2 tea shops→
Los Angeles is a city of tea rooms rather than tea counters, and both of the shops on this page are in Little Tokyo, a block apart. The longest-running one grew from a small room near La Cienega in 1990 into four salons across the metro area and sells a long list of Chinese, Indian and Japanese teas by the 4 oz; the other is a matcha café and green tea shop that stocks Japanese teas from Yame, in 100 g packs and tea bags. Prices on this page run from US$ 9.88 for 4 oz of English Breakfast to US$ 57.38 for 4 oz of jasmine pearls.
Seattle
5 tea shops→
Seattle splits its loose leaf between two parts of town. Pike Place Market holds two long-running counters that sell by the ounce and by the pound; Ballard holds two very different shops ten minutes apart; and a fifth, in the Chinatown-International District, sells Taiwanese high-mountain oolong by the canister. The spread is wide enough that one ounce of a house breakfast blend costs $5 and a pound of gunpowder costs $45.
Chicago
2 tea shops→
Chicago's loose-leaf shopping lives in two neighbourhoods. In the Gold Coast, two blocks from Michigan Avenue, a shop run by a tea sommelier keeps more than 200 pure teas sold by the 100 g; up north in Andersonville, a tea bar with open-mic nights sells its leaf in 2 oz pouches. Both ship nationwide, and two Chicago-based online sellers without a public storefront cover the rarer Chinese teas.
Atlanta
4 tea shops→
Atlanta's loose leaf is sold mostly by the ounce, in small tea shops that are also cafés: a café on the BeltLine in Old Fourth Ward, a tearoom in Castleberry Hill, a tea spot on Fayetteville Road and a tea bar upstairs from a pharmacy on Fairburn Road. Prices on this page run from $5 for an ounce of Keemun or sencha to $34 for an ounce of matcha, and a gong fu tea house on the Westside rounds out the list.
Columbus
2 tea shops→
Columbus lost both of its best-known tea salons in the last few years, and what is left is two very different counters. One is a spice stall inside the North Market downtown that sells herbs and a smoked black tea loose by weight, starting at a quarter of an ounce; the other is a reservation-only tearoom in Franklinton with a small boutique attached. Neither stocks oolong today, so the oolong rows on our tea pages come from elsewhere in the country.
Minneapolis
2 tea shops→
Minneapolis keeps its loose leaf in the same few blocks south-west of downtown: two counters within a ten-minute walk of each other in Uptown and Lowry Hill East. Both sell in 1 oz portions, so a single tea costs a few dollars and a whole shelf can be tried for the price of one tin elsewhere. A third shop, TeaSource, sits just north-east in St. Anthony Village and ships nationwide.
Fort Collins
3 tea shops→
Fort Collins keeps two loose-leaf tea houses within a few blocks of each other in Old Town. One, on Walnut Street since 2009, sells more than 200 teas by the ounce from its Great Wall of Tea; the other, on College Avenue since 2015, is the Fort Collins branch of a Boulder tea house with more than 100 teas and a deep shelf of Wuyi rock oolongs. A spice and tea franchise in Front Range Village, on the south side of town, adds a smaller tea wall. Prices on this page run from US$ 4.45 for an ounce of Assam to US$ 49.95 for 4 oz of Tie Guan Yin.
Indianapolis
3 tea shops→
Indianapolis does not have a tea district, so the three counters worth the trip sit far apart: a cafe with two shops, one on the IU Indianapolis campus downtown and one at Tarkington Park, that weighs loose leaf from one ounce up to a pound; a herb-and-tea shop out in Pike Township with more than eighty loose products and a tea room you can book; and a matcha bar on the near-north side that grinds Japanese leaf to order. Between them the city covers black, green, oolong, white, matcha, chai and pu-erh, with prices from 3,95 US$ for half an ounce to 35,00 US$ for 30 g of ceremonial matcha. All three ship, and two of them also pour at the counter.
Las Vegas
1 tea shop→
Away from the Strip, the tea in Las Vegas is on Spring Mountain Road, the city's Chinatown. Its specialist shop leans Chinese and Taiwanese, with roasted and milk oolongs, a sticky-rice shou pu-erh and Japanese matcha sold in small 1–2 oz pouches, and it doubles as a tasting room where the owner walks beginners through the leaves.
Sacramento
6 tea shops→
Sacramento's loose leaf is spread across its neighbourhoods rather than gathered downtown: a tea house on the R Street corridor that has stocked more than 150 teas since 1998, a café on Broadway in Oak Park that sells its blends by the ounce and sets a weekly high tea, a coffee-and-tea house in Old Sacramento with its own loose line from 2 oz up, and a spice shop on J Street with some forty teas priced per ounce. Two coffee roasters round it out with tea pouches. Prices on this page run from US$ 4.50 for an ounce of organic sencha to US$ 35 for 7 oz of a Kyoto sencha.
Salt Lake City
3 tea shops→
Salt Lake City has two tea houses where you can sit over a pot and leave with a bag, each on its own side of town. The Tea Grotto, on 900 South since 2004, sells about 150 loose teas by the 50 g, from a 9.99 US$ English Breakfast to a 27.49 US$ Gyokuro. Tea Zaanti, in Sugar House, pours more than 85 teas in a café that doubles as a wine bar and sells them in 1.5 oz tins. Downtown, Caputo's Market stocks Greek herbal infusions next to its cheese counter. Prices are in US dollars.
Boston
4 tea shops→
In Boston, loose tea is sold mostly by places that do something else first. A coffeehouse chain with cafés from Newbury Street to Fenway packs nine house teas in bags; the gift shop of the Tea Party Ships and Museum sells the teas named in the 1773 cargo lists; a North End coffee and spice store, open since 1932, weighs tea by the half pound; and a spice company keeps a stall in the Boston Public Market. A tea room on Tremont Street sells its tins at the counter only. Prices on this page run from US$ 5 for half a pound of English Breakfast to US$ 24.95 for 120 g of Iron Goddess of Mercy.
Cincinnati
3 tea shops→
Cincinnati's loose-leaf tea lives in one block of Over-the-Rhine: Findlay Market, Ohio's oldest public market, holds a 285-tea specialist shop with 23+ years behind it, a spice merchant trading since 2005 that sells its teas by the ounce, and, on Elm Street next door, a monster-themed tea company founded in 2013 that runs a tea bar. The specialist has a second, larger shop in Madisonville on the east side. The former Oakley tea house Essencha no longer trades from a shop, and the rest of the region's tea rooms sit across the river in Kentucky or in the northern suburbs.
Grand Rapids
3 tea shops→
Grand Rapids sells its loose leaf by the ounce in three very different rooms: a tea and herb shop in East Hills, founded in 2004, with hundreds of bulk teas and a café; a Spice & Tea Merchants stall front and centre in the Downtown Market with almost 200 teas in 1 oz bags; and a botanical marketplace on Fulton Street West that weighs out organic tea next to its dried herbs. Prices on this page run from US$ 3.25 for an ounce of organic Gunpowder to US$ 21.55 for an ounce of Silver Needles, with most black and green teas between US$ 4.50 and US$ 7.99.
Jacksonville
2 tea shops→
Jacksonville's packaged tea sits in two very different rooms: a spice-and-tea shop on San Marco Boulevard with a tea bar and the chain's 2 oz bags, and a coffee roaster on West Beaver Street that sells its own loose blacks by the pound next to boxes of Rishi sachets. A family-run online supplier based in the city ships bulk tea and herbs by the half pound. Prices on this page run from US$ 6 for a half pound of hibiscus to US$ 23.99 for 2 oz of jasmine pearls.
Portland
5 tea shops→
Portland, Oregon is where American specialty tea grew up: the man who co-founded Stash and created Tazo started his last company here in 2009, and the city's oldest teahouse has poured on SE Belmont since 1997. Today the map runs from a blending works on the Central Eastside to a shop on NW 23rd that began as Tea Chai Té in 2003, a Pearl District tea bar, and a small house off Mississippi Avenue devoted to Chinese teas and pu-erh cakes. Four of the five sell by the 2 to 3.5 oz tin or pouch and ship nationwide.
Albuquerque
5 tea shops→
Albuquerque sells its loose leaf by the ounce. A shop on Mountain Road weighs out more than 300 teas from $3.25 the ounce, a boutique in Nob Hill imports Chinese and Taiwanese teas in 2 oz bags, a New Mexico blender in Uptown and Old Town sells its teas in tins, and an English-style tearoom on Osuna Road keeps a gift shop of its own blends. Prices on this page run from $3.25 for an ounce of Cream Earl Grey to $35 for 20 g of ceremonial matcha.
Dallas
4 tea shops→
Dallas buys its loose leaf in two places that are nothing alike: a storefront in Deep Ellum, and a weekend market hall downtown where two separate vendors share one address inside The Shed at the Dallas Farmers Market. Nepal runs through the whole city — three of the four shops carry Himalayan leaf — and the fourth, in Far North Dallas, keeps the named classics in stock for pickup by appointment.
Kansas City
3 tea shops→
Kansas City has two tea houses that could hardly be more different. One, in Brookside since 2002, sells a long wall of organic loose teas and house blends by the ounce, with free in-store pickup for web orders. The other, on the first floor of Crown Center, is a tea house and salon founded in 2005 that specialises in white teas from Fujian, sold from a 15 g sample upwards. A local coffee roaster rounds out the list with boxed tea sachets. Prices on this page run from US$ 4.45 for an ounce of organic English Breakfast to US$ 40 for an ounce of Silver Needle.
Nashville
2 tea shops→
Nashville's loose-leaf tea is sold by the ounce at a spice-and-tea shop at OneC1ty, off Charlotte Avenue, and by the 2 oz bag at a Spice & Tea Exchange franchise in Hillsboro Village, where a tea bar sits beside the seasonings. The city's best-known tea house, High Garden in East Nashville, lost its building in the March 2020 tornado and now sells online and through partners, so East Nashville's tea life continues at a teahouse-pottery studio in Inglewood and a tea-and-coffee café on Fatherland Street. Prices on this page run from US$ 3 for an ounce of gunpowder to US$ 23.99 for 2 oz of jasmine pearls.
Philadelphia
3 tea shops→
Two of Philadelphia's three tea counters are inside Reading Terminal Market, a block apart, and the third is a tea room in Northern Liberties that blends its own. The market sells by the ounce, so a single tea can be tried for a couple of dollars; the tea room sells 6 oz bags of teas it names itself. All three ship.
St. Augustine
2 tea shops→
St. Augustine buys its loose-leaf tea in two very different places. In the historic district, a spice and tea franchise on Hypolita Street, a few steps from St. George Street, keeps a tea bar beside its seasonings. Out on State Road 16A, a local tea and spice company that started at the Saturday farmers market runs a shop and café in a parish hall and sells its teas in small pouches. Prices on this page run from US$ 7 for 0.8 oz of sencha or Wuyi oolong to US$ 65 for a 2.1 oz tin of Uji matcha.
San Antonio
2 tea shops→
San Antonio sells its loose leaf inside other places: a tea lounge in a vintage and crafts mall on NW Military Highway, an herb shop with gardens in Monte Vista, a tea counter inside a craft market on Loop 410 and a high-tea house on North Loop 1604. Prices on this page run from $4.25 for an ounce of Earl Grey to $19.25 for an ounce of ceremonial matcha.
San Diego
4 tea shops→
San Diego spreads its leaf across four neighbourhoods and four completely different ways of buying it: by the gram in Ocean Beach, by the ounce in Liberty Station, in 40 g pouches in Kearny Mesa and in 56 g halves in La Jolla. The entry price runs from $8 for a 10 g gongfu session to $45 for a tin of stone-milled matcha, and three of the four shops source their single origins directly.
St. Louis
3 tea shops→
St. Louis keeps its loose leaf in three unlikely rooms: a tea room in DeBaliviere Place whose gift shop carries more than fifty teas and whose blends ship from a sister web shop by the ounce, a spice counter that has stood in the Soulard Farmers Market since 1914 with about a hundred teas at US$ 3.50 the 2 oz, and a coffee roaster from 1994 whose Central West End café stocks Firepot sachets and a Uji matcha. Big Heart Tea Co., a St. Louis brand founded in 2012 with no shop of its own, ships its Malawi black and Shizuoka matcha nationwide. Prices on this page run from US$ 3.45 for half an ounce of peppermint to US$ 64.29 for 100 g of stone-milled matcha.
Tampa
2 tea shops→
Tampa's loose-leaf tea comes mostly from one local company: a tea house founded in 2010 with its flagship on Davis Islands and a second counter inside Oxford Exchange, downtown, selling single-origin teas and house blends in 2 to 16 oz bags. In South Tampa, a refill shop on El Prado Boulevard sells organic teas by the ounce for your own jar. Prices on this page run from US$ 5 for an ounce of English Breakfast to US$ 17 for 2 oz of a Taiwanese GABA oolong.
Anchorage
3 tea shops→
Anchorage sells its loose leaf in three different rooms: a spice and tea boutique in midtown with a tea room and a wall of bulk teas priced by the ounce, the local franchise of a spice chain with a tea bar in a South Anchorage shopping centre, and a downtown gift emporium that has hand-tossed its own Samovar black tea for more than fifty years. Prices on this page run from $2.95 for an ounce of masala chai to $23.99 for two ounces of jasmine pearls.
Baltimore
2 tea shops→
Baltimore's two tea counters could not be more different: a British tea room on Harford Road in Hamilton that weighs out Rishi loose leaf by the ounce, and a spice shop on the Fells Point waterfront with a tea bar inside and the chain's catalogue in 2 oz bags. Two Baltimore tea companies without a shop, one at the Saturday farmers market in Waverly, sell online in 4 oz pouches. Prices on this page run from $3.95 for an ounce of English Breakfast to $26 for 4 oz of genmaicha.
Bellingham
2 tea shops→
Bellingham, an hour and a half north of Seattle, has a tea scene built by three local businesses. A tea and spice shop founded in 2004 on West Kellogg Road sells more than 175 teas from 2 oz, with English Breakfast at US$ 6 and a Ti Kuan Yin at US$ 7.94; a family herb store open since 1976 on Railroad Avenue weighs out its own blends by the ounce; and Flying Bird Botanicals, an organic tea maker from the city, sells its 2.5 oz tins online at US$ 15.75 with pickup.
Buffalo
2 tea shops→
Buffalo's tea is brewed more than it is sold by the ounce: a downtown tea house pours teas from a dozen countries, a gongfu room on Elmwood serves Chinese leaf by the session, and an Elmwood coffee roaster keeps some 40 loose teas behind the counter, but none of them publish a price list. The two shops that do are a tea blender inside the old Niagara Frontier Food Terminal, open to the public on Saturdays, and a plant-based market on Hertel Avenue with a tea bar. Most of the region's dedicated loose-leaf shops sit in the suburbs.
McKinney
2 tea shops→
McKinney, north of Dallas, has two very different places to buy leaf tea. One is a family tea company on University Business Drive that blends and packs its own range and keeps a weekday showroom you can walk into; the other is a spice-and-tea merchant on the old courthouse square downtown, where loose tea is scooped into 1, 4 and 8 ounce bags alongside the salts and the vanillas. Between them they cover black, green, oolong and matcha, and both ship within the United States.
Mesa
2 tea shops→
Mesa is a thin market for tea and most searches for it land you in Tempe, Chandler or Scottsdale instead, so this page is short on purpose: two shops that are genuinely inside Mesa and genuinely sell leaf by weight. One is a herb apothecary a block off Main Street downtown that weighs tea by the ounce with a two-ounce minimum, which makes it the cheapest way to try five things at once in the whole Phoenix area. The other is an Asian grocery on South Dobson Road whose tea aisle leans Taiwanese, with high-mountain oolong and jasmine by the 150 g bag. Between them you get black, green, oolong, chai, matcha and chrysanthemum; neither carries the other's strengths.
Milwaukee
2 tea shops→
Milwaukee is the home of Rishi Tea, the organic importer founded here in 1997, and yet the city inside its own limits has no dedicated loose-leaf tea shop: Rishi's Menomonee Valley building is a headquarters, not a store, and the big specialist retailer of the region, Fava Tea, sits in Greenfield and Brookfield. What Milwaukee does have is two herb apothecaries that sell classic teas by the ounce next to their bulk herbs, one in Bay View and one on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive with an express counter in the Third Ward. Both weigh to order, both publish their hours, and between them you get Assam, Earl Grey, sencha, jasmine, a Se Chung oolong, pu-erh, rooibos and yerba mate for two to seven dollars an ounce. For the deep catalogue — Darjeeling by estate, Wuyi rock oolong, Japanese kukicha — you order from Rishi online and it ships from across town.
Tacoma
2 tea shops→
Tacoma has one real tea house and it is a good one: Mad Hat, on Broadway in the downtown Theater District, with more than 300 teas and herbs sold in 50 g steps, from a 8 US$ genmaicha to a 17 US$ Jin Jun Mei. The rest of the city is thinner than its size suggests — the tea rooms in Old Town, Freighthouse Square and 6th Avenue that guides still list have closed, and the two other genuine tea counters, Obscura on Hilltop and the Jin Jin matcha room on Pacific Avenue, had nothing we could price today. So the second shop on this page is not a tea shop at all but the Pacific Northwest Shop in Proctor, a family gift and specialty-foods store since 1978 whose tea shelf is the regional roll call: MarketSpice, Washington's Finest, Apolis and Felicity Loft, all in sealed packs. Blue Moon Teas, a Tacoma online seller since 1999, fills in the breakfast blacks and a roasted mate.
Saint Paul
2 tea shops→
Saint Paul buys its loose leaf in two very different formats: by the ounce at a tea bar on Grand Avenue, where almost everything starts as a 1 oz bag, and by the tin at a chocolate shop downtown. The first is where to try a dozen teas for little money; the second is where to pick up one tin of a classic alongside a box of chocolates.
Scottsdale
2 tea shops→
Scottsdale's loose-leaf tea sits in Old Town, a few blocks apart. One shop on Fifth Avenue has sold tea since 2009 from a German-style tea wall of nearly 100 teas, with its own blends and booked afternoon teas; a spice and tea franchise on Main Street adds a tea bar beside its seasonings. Prices on this page run from US$ 15 for 100 g of hibiscus flowers to US$ 89 for 100 g of gyokuro.
Canada
Montreal
3 tea shops→
Montreal buys its loose leaf in neighbourhood tea houses rather than downtown: a tea salon and shop on rue Wellington in Verdun that has been pouring since 2003 and stocks around 125 teas by the 50 g, and a Japanese-leaning merchant on rue Beaubien Est, also from 2003, with more than 600 teas, a matcha bar and a second tea bar on rue Saint-Hubert. The DAVIDsTEA store in the Centre Eaton covers the chain's catalogue until 9pm from Wednesday to Friday. Prices on this page run from CA$ 5.98 for 50 g of yerba mate to CA$ 39 for 50 g of matcha, with 10 g of a competition-grade Oriental Beauty at CA$ 25.
Toronto
1 tea shop→
Toronto is well served by Canadian tea brands that sell online, but the shop we send people to is the one where you can sit down and taste. On Yonge Street near Rosedale station, a Chinese tea house founded in 2009 covers every family of tea from the same counter: yellow tea, aged sheng, Anhua hei cha and Phoenix Dan Cong, all sold from 25 g so a first order need not be a commitment.
Edmonton
3 tea shops→
Edmonton has two independent tea merchants with proper walk-in shops: a 1996 tea shop on 124 Street with rows of steel canisters and hundreds of sample jars, and a newer shop inside a historic house on 95A Street that grew out of a museum restaurant and pours a free tasting for anyone who walks in. The DAVIDsTEA store at West Edmonton Mall covers the chain's catalogue until 9pm on weeknights. Prices on this page run from CA$ 4.95 for 25 g of chamomile to CA$ 39 for 50 g of matcha, with most 50 g bags of black and green tea between CA$ 8.50 and CA$ 13.
Ottawa
3 tea shops→
Ottawa has one classic walk-in tea shop, in the ByWard Market since 1996, open seven days and selling everything by the 100 g, and a single-origin specialist that has just moved to Colonnade Road near Hunt Club and sells online with curbside pickup while the new shop is fitted out. Day to day, loose leaf also comes through the city's coffee roasters: Bridgehead's seventeen coffeehouses stock its own 50 g tins at a flat price, and Equator's six cafés carry Rishi one-pound bags and Genuine Tea matcha. Prices on this page run from CA$ 6 for 50 g of yerba mate to CA$ 45 for 100 g of Silver Needle or jasmine pearls.
Mississauga
4 tea shops→
Mississauga's loose leaf is concentrated in Square One, where three counters sit a few hundred metres apart: a Ten Ren's Tea store selling sealed packs of Taiwanese oolong and Chinese green, a Tao Tea Leaf counter in the Food District that weighs out single-origin teas from 25 g, and a DAVIDsTEA with a beverage bar. The exception is Streetsville, where a tea room inside an 1885 house has served afternoon tea since 1989 and sells its 45-odd house blends by the 50 g bag. Prices on this page run from CA$ 9 for 25 g of Earl Grey to CA$ 108 for a 113 g pack of Da Hong Pao.
Winnipeg
3 tea shops→
Winnipeg buys its loose leaf in three very different rooms: a Dutch-style tea and coffee boutique on Academy Road that has weighed out 50 g bags since 2004, a tea cocktail bar in the Exchange District that sells every tea on its menu to take home, and a mother-and-daughter coffee and tea counter downtown at Cityplace with 100 g packs. Prices on this page run from CA$ 8 for 50 g of English Breakfast to CA$ 46 for 50 g of ceremonial matcha.
Hamilton
3 tea shops→
Hamilton's loose leaf is spread across the amalgamated city rather than downtown: the one independent tea house, open since 1999 with more than 250 teas and an afternoon-tea room, is in the village of Waterdown; the chain store is at Lime Ridge Mall on the Mountain; and the everyday source is a health-food grocer with three stores, Locke Street included. A Chinese single-origin specialist in Westdale sells online with pickup by appointment, and downtown there is a Japanese matcha café on King Street East. Prices on this page run from CA$ 3.75 for 25 g of a Chinese green to CA$ 39 for 50 g of matcha; the tea house prices its bags by the cup, from CA$ 9 for 25 cups.
Saskatoon
2 tea shops→
Saskatoon has one proper tea merchant and it has been in the city for a long time: McQuarries Tea & Coffee Merchants on Broadway Avenue, family-run and serving Saskatoon for over 90 years, sells its loose teas from the 50 g bag upward, from a 6.75 CA$ English Breakfast to Darjeeling Happy Valley at 9.00 CA$. Across the river, SaskMade Marketplace on 8th Street East stocks the province's own blends, Saskatoon berry herbal tea first. Prices are in Canadian dollars, and both shops deliver inside the city.
Vancouver
5 tea shops→
Vancouver's tea shops sit in three pockets: two long-running Chinese tea counters in Chinatown, a pair of tea bars on the west side and on Main Street whose owners buy direct from farms in China, Taiwan and Japan, and a family shop on Granville Street in Marpole. Prices below are in Canadian dollars, read on each shop's own site; most sell loose leaf from 25 g, 40 g or 50 g, and Treasure Green also sells small tasters.
Thornhill
2 tea shops→
Thornhill straddles Vaughan and Markham along Yonge Street, and its tea lives in its groceries rather than in a tea house: a Korean supermarket at Yonge and Steeles whose aisle runs to Nokchawon and Dongsuh greens, Yamamotoyama sencha and an Itoen matcha, and a natural-foods warehouse on Doncaster Avenue, there since 1994, with bulk gunpowder, an organic Uji sencha, loose hibiscus and yerba mate. Both lists lean green and herbal. Prices on this page run from CA$ 4.99 for 16 sencha bags to CA$ 28.99 for 95 g of organic Uji sencha.
Victoria
3 tea shops→
Victoria is where Murchie's began in 1894, and its Government Street shop with a café is still the city's big tea counter, with more than 130 teas sold from 2 oz. Two blocks north, in Chinatown, Silk Road Tea has sold organic teas by the tin since 1992 and runs a spa in the same building, and around the corner on Pandora Avenue, Just Matcha sells nothing but Japanese matcha. Prices are in Canadian dollars.
Calgary
2 tea shops→
Calgary's loose tea is sold by two independent shops on either side of downtown. Tea Trader, an importer that has sold tea in the city since 1993, keeps its shop and warehouse in Ramsay and lists its estate teas by garden, from a 15 CA$ Earl Grey to a first-grade Dragonwell at 26 CA$ for 125 g. The Naked Leaf, in Kensington, sells its teas in tins with labels by local artists or in cheaper refill bags. Kensington also has Oolong Tea House, and TotaliTea trades from the Calgary Farmers' Market. Prices are in Canadian dollars.
Halifax
2 tea shops→
Halifax has two independent tea shops, both with their own way of buying. World Tea House, on Argyle Street across from the Neptune Theatre since 2010, is a sit-down tea house with about a hundred loose teas, many of them organic and bought direct from farms, sold from 17 CA$ for 100 g of Earl Grey. Eastern Tea Bar, a family shop on Gottingen Street in the North End, sells small-batch teas in 25 and 50 g bags, from a 6 CA$ Genmaicha to a 2026 Uji matcha at 27 CA$ for 30 g. Prices are in Canadian dollars.
Kingston
2 tea shops→
Kingston, Ontario has two independent tea shops, both run by certified tea sommeliers and both a short drive from downtown. Cha Cha Tea, on Days Road in the west end since 2006, is strongest on Japanese tea and sells from 50 g, with a 10 g sample of almost everything. Enchanted Creations, on Highway 15 east of the causeway, blends its own teas and sells greens, oolongs and whites in 50 g bags. Prices are in Canadian dollars.
London, Ontario
3 tea shops→
London, Ontario buys its loose leaf downtown: a tea merchant upstairs at Covent Garden Market with more than a hundred teas sold by the 50 g, a tea lounge on Piccadilly Street, open since 2016, that pours more than 125 teas at the table and sells a few of them packaged, and the DAVIDsTEA store in Masonville Place with the chain's 50 g pouches until 9pm on weekdays. Prices on this page run from CA$ 4 for 25 g of organic bancha to CA$ 39.95 for a 30 g tin of organic matcha.
Spruce Grove
2 tea shops→
Spruce Grove, just west of Edmonton, has one tea house of its own: a blender on Brookside Avenue with more than sixty organic loose teas, sold from a 1 oz tin at CA$ 9 up to pound bags, alongside its tea bombs, syrups and bottled lattes. The other counter is a natural-health store on Campsite Road, open since 2004, with bagged greens, a Bai Mu Dan and a first-harvest matcha. Prices on this page run from CA$ 4.99 for 25 chamomile bags to CA$ 28 for 57 g of purple oolong.
Chile
Australia
Brisbane
3 tea shops→
Brisbane's tea shopping splits three ways: an independent boutique in New Farm that blends its own teas, a Japanese tea specialist in Sunnybank Plaza, and the Brisbane stores of The Tea Centre, the East Coast chain whose head office and warehouse are in the city. Prices below are in Australian dollars with GST included, read on each shop's own site; Tour de Tea sells in 40–80 g tea boxes and 300 g refills, Odaya in 100 g packs and The Tea Centre from 50 g.
Melbourne
3 tea shops→
Melbourne's tea splits between the city and the hills. In town, Oriental Teahouse, the yum cha house that began as a tea shop on Chapel Street and opened its South Yarra teahouse in 2003, sells the Chinese teas it pours by the 50 g bag, upstairs at 455 Chapel Street and at 378 Little Collins Street; on the same street, T2, the tea company that opened its first shop in Fitzroy in 1996, keeps a boutique at number 269 with its boxed loose leaf. An hour east, in Olinda, Tea Leaves stocks more than 300 teas priced by the 100 g bag. Prices below are in Australian dollars, GST included.
Perth
2 tea shops→
Perth's loose-leaf shopping sits mostly in the city centre, a few minutes' walk apart: the store and brew bar of a Western Australian tea company in the State Buildings, and T2's shop on the Hay Street Mall. West of the centre, a Japanese tea shop in Subiaco sells sencha, gyokuro and matcha. Prices below are in Australian dollars with GST included; Teassential sells in pouches of 20 to 70 g and T2 in 50 and 100 g boxes and tins.
Adelaide
3 tea shops→
Adelaide's loose-leaf tea spreads over three very different counters. In the city centre, T2 has a shop on the ground floor of Rundle Place, on the Rundle Mall, and to the south, by the Central Market, Kappy's has roasted coffee since 1932 and sells its teas by weight from 100 g. Out in the hills to the south, in Blackwood, Brackendale Tea Co runs a tea room and shop with its own blends in eco bags and tins. Prices below are in Australian dollars with GST included, and T BAR, the Adelaide tea company based in Torrensville, sells its 120-odd blends online with Click + Collect.
Sydney
1 tea shop→
Sydney's loose-leaf standby is a chain rather than a single boutique: The Tea Centre, trading since 1993, has shops at Stockland Piccadilly in the CBD, Westfield Bondi Junction and Westfield Hornsby, with more along the East Coast. Everything is sold by the 50 g at prices that make trying a new type easy, from an A$ 9.45 English Breakfast to Silver Needles, Ti Kuan Yin and four kinds of chai.
Launceston
3 tea shops→
Launceston buys its tea from two very different counters. In the city centre, Your Tea Shop on George Street is an independent tea and teaware boutique that stocks T2 alongside Tasmanian and Sri Lankan brands, with 100 g cubes of English Breakfast at A$ 18 and a 50 g tin of 2025 first-flush Darjeeling at A$ 48; out in Prospect, The Tea Equation blends its own Tasmanian teas with botanicals from the Huon Valley and sells them at its cellar door at A$ 14 for 50 g. The Spotted Quoll, a Tasmanian fashion and homewares shop on Quadrant Mall, keeps a shelf of those blends too, and The Art of Tea, a Tasmanian company from Kingston near Hobart, ships its range across Australia. Prices below are in Australian dollars, GST included.
Singapore
United Arab Emirates
Switzerland
Winterthur
2 tea shops→
Winterthur's tea shopping fits on a single street: two specialist shops sit a few doors apart on Steinberggasse in the Altstadt, one a loose-leaf counter founded in 1994, the other a tea shop with its own tearoom. Between them they cover Chinese and Japanese pure teas, Taiwanese oolongs, herbs by the 30 g and yerba mate, and both also sell online.
Zurich
2 tea shops→
Zürich's specialist tea shops are tucked into the lanes of the Altstadt. One is a loose-leaf counter in the Niederdorf with everyday blacks, greens, herbs and rooibos by the 50 or 100 g; the other, a few streets away on Spiegelgasse, is devoted to Chinese and Taiwanese teas sold mostly by the 50 g, with the teaware to brew them. Both also sell online.
India
Bengaluru
2 tea shops→
Bengaluru drinks more coffee than tea by tradition, and its tea scene is mostly chai cafes and counters inside supermarkets. Two real tea shops with their own doors are worth the trip: Sancha, the Delhi boutique chain that has three Bengaluru stores — on Lavelle Road downtown and in the Phoenix malls in Hebbal and on Whitefield Road — where every visit starts with a free tasting in china cups; and Infinitea, a tea room founded in the city in 2003 on Cunningham Road, with a second outlet in Indiranagar and a Darjeeling garden of its own in the Mirik valley. Between them the shelves run from a 150 ₹ Earl Grey to a 3.000 ₹ gyokuro, all in 50 g or 100 g packs. Teabox, which ships from Siliguri, covers the estate-specific Darjeeling and Nilgiri leaf nobody in town stocks.
Mumbai
3 tea shops→
Mumbai drinks chai by the cutting glass, but its loose-leaf shopping is easy to map. A Delhi-born tea boutique keeps three shops in the city, from Kala Ghoda to a mall in Lower Parel; a Mumbai brand founded in 2010 sells its teas from counters inside gourmet supermarkets; and the chai café chains pack their masala blends to take home. Everything below ships across India, so what you taste in the shop is easy to reorder.
Hyderabad
3 tea shops→
Hyderabad is a chai city before it is a tea city: the cup of the day is Irani chai poured in Old City cafés, and the shops that sell leaf to take home are blenders of strong Assam for the milk pot rather than boutiques. Three of them have their own doors and their own prices online: a 1964 blender from the Old City with a retail store on Mir Alam Mandi Road, a 1975 depot on Prenderghast Road in Secunderabad, and a 1976 wholesaler in Kachiguda with a retail counter. Between them you get everyday Assam at 80 ₹ the 100 g, a masala chai at 240 ₹ the 250 g and, on the loose-leaf side, a Darjeeling black tea at 242 ₹ the 25 g. Prices are in rupees; the city's one specialty tea lounge is listed further down without prices, because everything on its site is marked down today.
Delhi
4 tea shops→
Delhi is where India's tea boutiques began, and the capital still has the densest choice in the country. A family merchant in Sunder Nagar Market sells Darjeeling and Assam by the 50 g at prices that make trying a new estate easy; the tea house that opened in Old Delhi in 1981 now has boutiques in Saket and Chanakyapuri as well; a direct-from-garden brand runs its only shop in Khan Market; and a Siliguri company keeps a counter in Greater Kailash. All four also ship nationwide.
Spain
Málaga
2 tea shops→
Málaga keeps its loose-leaf shopping inside the old town, a few minutes apart on foot. One shop has been weighing tea on Calle San Juan since 1994 and sells almost everything in 50 g bags; the other, on Calle Especería behind the market, works with single-estate lots — first-flush Darjeeling, Japanese sencha, Kirishima matcha — priced by 100 g. Both ship anywhere in Spain.
Madrid
2 tea shops→
Madrid sells loose leaf by the 100 g almost everywhere, which makes prices easy to compare across the city. A shop on the Arganzuela riverside keeps the long origin list — Lung Ching, Silver Needles, Da Hong Pao, Keemun Congou — while a neighbourhood counter in Chamberí, by Cuatro Caminos, covers the everyday teas in tins of about thirty cups each.
Valencia
2 tea shops→
Valencia sells its loose leaf in 50 g steps, which makes it one of the cheapest cities in Spain to try something new: most black and green teas start under €4. Two shops carry the city, one in Ciutat Vella by the cathedral and one in Extramurs, and both roast or source coffee alongside the tea.
Barcelona
2 tea shops→
Barcelona has two very different ways of buying leaf, both in the old city and ten minutes apart on foot. In El Call, a teahouse imports single lots in 6 to 100 g portions and numbers each one; in El Born, a house created in 1993 sells the classics by the 100 g and up to the kilo. Between them you can go from a 6 g taste of Wuyi rock tea to a kilo of everyday Assam.
Palma
2 tea shops→
Palma buys its loose leaf in the old town, within a ten-minute walk: an independent, Japan-leaning tea shop in an eighteenth-century building on Carrer de les Monges that sells fixed 100 g packs and several grades of matcha, and the Spanish chain Tea Shop with a store on Carrer de Sant Nicolau and a second one in the Porto Pi shopping centre by the port. Two more tea houses, on Carrer d'Aragonès and Costa de Can Muntaner, sell at the counter. Prices on this page run from 7,00 € for 100 g of rooibos to 50 € for a 30 g tin of ceremonial matcha; every shop found closes on Sunday.
Vitoria-Gasteiz
3 tea shops→
Vitoria-Gasteiz buys its tea on Calle Eduardo Dato, the pedestrian shopping street of the Ensanche: the Tea Shop chain opened its first store in the city there in October 2025, and a few doors along Casa Eguía has roasted coffee at number 7 since June 1936 and sells a long shelf of loose teas beside it. In the medieval Casco Viejo, Sandaili on Calle Correría keeps origin teas and some 140 loose herbs in a tea-studio format, and the fair-trade shop of Medicus Mundi on Pío XII covers everyday tea by the pack. Prices on this page run from €3 for 100 g of mint to €25.98 for 50 g of Silver Needles.
Zaragoza
4 tea shops→
Zaragoza buys its tea in four very different places. The oldest tea shop in the city sits on Calle Bolonia, near Gran Vía, and still takes orders by phone; the national chain Tea Shop has two stores, one on the Coso and one in the Aragonia shopping centre; a stall in the Mercado Central weighs out loose tea next to nuts and dried fruit from 4,30 € the 100 g; and a herbalist open since 1978 on Calle San Vicente de Paúl stocks gunpowder, kukicha and matcha. A specialist shop with a certified tea sommelier, EspabilaTé, completes the picture on Cortes de Aragón.
Alicante
3 tea shops→
Alicante keeps its tea in the Mercado Central: two counters under the same roof on Avenida Alfonso X El Sabio, one of them a Murcian tea-and-coffee house with a list that runs from yellow tea to yerba mate. A block away, the specialist chain Tea Shop has a store on Calle Pintor Cabrera and a second inside Plaza Mar 2, and a bulk grocer on Calle Serrano weighs out herbs by 50 g. Prices below are in euros with VAT included, read on each shop's own site; the market counter sells in 125 g bags and Tea Shop from 100 g up to a kilo.
Austria
Vienna
3 tea shops→
Vienna buys its tea in the first district, within a ten-minute walk: Haas & Haas at Stephansplatz 4, behind the cathedral, with more than 300 teas, a tea house and its own pâtisserie; the Theehandlung Schönbichler on the Wollzeile, with house blends named after the city's theatres and a long list of single herbs; and JägerTEE beside the Staatsoper, a family business trading since 1862. All three sell by the 100 g pack with prices including VAT and ship within Austria.
Innsbruck
3 tea shops→
Innsbruck's tea fits in a ten-minute walk through the centre. A specialist shop with more than 400 teas has traded on Kiebachgasse in the Altstadt since 1999 and pours in its own garden; a Tyrolean tea-and-spice house born in Schwaz keeps its second counter on Maximilianstraße; and at the entrance to the old town, a franchise store of the organic Sonnentor brand covers the everyday shelf of loose teas and herbs. All three also sell online, and most loose tea is sold by the 50 or 100 g.
New Zealand
Auckland
4 tea shops→
Auckland's tea is sold by merchants rather than boutiques, and three of them have been at it since the nineties: a North Shore blender with more than 150 teas and a concept store in Rosedale, a Mt Eden shop that has weighed tea since 1995 and now pairs it with romance novels, and a café chain that has supplied the city's tea rooms since 2000 and sells single-estate leaf from 50 g in four suburbs. The newest is a Chinese tea studio in Mount Roskill, visited by booking. Everything ships within New Zealand.
Christchurch
4 tea shops→
Christchurch has no tea house of the Auckland kind, so its leaf is spread across four counters: a local blender of New Zealand herbs and single origins with a stall in the Riverside Market, a specialty coffee roaster on Fitzgerald Ave that pouches its own loose leaf, a New Brighton health shop, and the Cashel Street department store that carries the imported tins. Prices below are in New Zealand dollars, read on each shop's own site; the blender sells in 20 g, 30 g and 50 g cubes with 100 g and 200 g pouches behind them, and the roaster in 125 g pouches.
Estonia
United Kingdom
Cardiff
3 tea shops→
Cardiff's tea is sold out of its Victorian and Edwardian arcades and its teahouses. Waterloo Tea, the importer that opened its first teahouse in Penylan in 2008, now has three rooms in the city and the deepest loose-leaf list, from a 5,80 £ English Breakfast to single-estate Darjeeling and Japanese sencha; Bird & Blend keeps its wall of 100 blends in the Royal Arcade a few doors from Wally's, the delicatessen that has traded there since 1981; and Quantum, the coffee roaster by the castle and in the Bay, sells a short tea range in tubs. Prices below are in pounds with VAT included.
Brighton
3 tea shops→
Brighton's tea runs from the seafront to the Open Market. Bird & Blend Tea Co., the blender that calls the city its home town, keeps two shops here: the flagship Tea Mixology store on Gardner Street in the North Laine and a second counter in the Kings Road Arches on the beach, with a 6,00 £ pouch of its house English Breakfast and a pink, caffeine-free Brighton Rock blend made for the city. Whittard of Chelsea trades on East Street, steps from the sea, with 100 g pouches of English Breakfast, Earl Grey and Darjeeling at 10,95 £; and MDTea, a local blender that began in a tearoom, has a counter in the Open Market on Marshalls Row with the gentlest prices on this page, from a 6,50 £ breakfast blend to Silver Needle at 10,00 £ for 50 g. Prices below are in pounds with VAT included.
Leeds
3 tea shops→
Leeds buys its tea in two places: the shopping streets between Briggate and Commercial Street, where Bird & Blend keeps its wall of 100 blends and Whittard of Chelsea, the London merchant founded in 1886, has its Lands Lane store, and the Food Hall of Kirkgate Market, where Teapot - Tea or Coffee has sold more than 100 numbered loose leaf teas by weight since it opened as a market stall in 2014. The price gap is wide: an everyday English Breakfast is £3.95 for 50 g at Teapot, £6.00 for 50 g at Bird & Blend and £10.95 for 100 g at Whittard. Prices below are in pounds with VAT included.
Sheffield
4 tea shops→
Sheffield buys its tea from blenders and roasters rather than from tea houses: Birdhouse blends in the city centre and names half its range after the place (Kelham Island, Peace Gardens, Full Monty), Pollards has been roasting on Ecclesall Road for generations and keeps the deepest loose-leaf list in the city, and two refill-and-roastery counters on Abbeydale Road and in Hope Works sell leaf by the bag. Prices below are in pounds with VAT included, read on each shop's own site; Birdhouse sells in 20 g, 60 g and 75 g, Pollards from 125 g up to a kilo, and the Abbeydale Road shelf in flat 100 g bags.
Bristol
3 tea shops→
Bristol is a big city with a short list of places that sell leaf to take home. One shop is devoted to it: Bird & Blend's Park Street store, with a wall of 100 blends and a pear cider tea made only for its West Country shops. The rest of the loose tea lives in the refill shops Bristol has more of than most British cities: Zero Green in Bedminster and Preserve on Gloucester Road both weigh out organic Assam, sencha and rooibos by the 100 g at prices well under boutique level. Prices are in pounds with VAT included, and the Whittard branch in Broadmead is listed without prices.
Tower Hamlets, London
3 tea shops→
Most of London's famous tea names sit in Mayfair, Covent Garden or Notting Hill, which is another borough and another afternoon. Inside Tower Hamlets the list is short and specific: a Japanese tea room on Brick Lane with a tatami room in the basement, a matcha counter in Canary Wharf, and the Brick Lane grocery where the neighbourhood has bought its everyday leaf for decades. Between them you can buy a 50 g packet of Uji gyokuro, a tin of ceremonial matcha and a kilo of Indian black tea within twenty minutes of each other. Prices are in pounds with VAT included, and we add two nationwide online sellers for the leaf nobody in the borough stocks.
London
2 tea shops→
Two central London tea shops, both in Westminster and both selling online as well. On the Strand, opposite the Royal Courts of Justice, Twinings has traded since 1706 and runs a sampling bar and two-hour masterclasses at its flagship; in Mayfair, just off New Bond Street, Postcard Teas buys from farms of under 15 acres and names the maker on every tea. Prices are in pounds, from a 125 g box of everyday Earl Grey to 10 g of dated West Lake Long Jing.
Manchester
2 tea shops→
Manchester buys its leaf on two streets a few minutes apart. Whittard of Chelsea, the tea company born in Chelsea in 1886, keeps a shop at 6 Market Street with pouches and caddies of English Breakfast, Earl Grey and Darjeeling at £10.95 the 100 g; Bird & Blend Tea Co. has its wall of 100 loose leaf blends at 57 Church Street in the Northern Quarter, with a caffeine-free fruit blend named after an Oasis song as the Manchester signature. Across the ring road in Ancoats, the Japanese tea house Cha-ology sells Yame sencha, gyokuro and matcha from its online shop while it prepares its next chapter. Prices below are in pounds with VAT included.
Germany
Berlin
7 tea shops→
Berlin buys tea in specialist shops rather than department-store counters, and the good ones are spread across the districts: a Chinese tea house in Wilmersdorf that has been open since 1982, a Japanese-leaning dealer in Friedrichshain, a green-tea café in Mitte that packs its own sencha, the design-led P&T stores in Mitte and inside KaDeWe, two Ronnefeldt brand partners, one on Goltzstraße in Schöneberg and one out in Adlershof, and the five Berlin shops of TeeGschwendner, the national chain with some 350 loose teas and online reservation for pickup. Prices below are in euros with VAT included, read on each shop's own site; most sell loose leaf by 50 g or 100 g, and P&T by caddy.
Nuremberg
2 tea shops→
Nuremberg's tea is bought in the old town. A family-run tea shop open since 1985 on Innere Laufer Gasse keeps more than 400 teas and sells them from 50 g, with Earl Grey or Keemun at 2,59 € the 50 g and a Yunnan Dian Hong at 10,23 €; on the Hauptmarkt, a herb and spice house founded in 1933 stocks 450 teas in 100 g refill packs next to its 350 spices. The national chain TeeGschwendner also has a branch on Königstraße 45.
Oldenburg
2 tea shops→
Oldenburg sits on the edge of East Frisia, the corner of Germany that drinks the most tea, and its two tea counters are a few hundred metres apart in the city centre. Nölker & Nölker on Lange Straße is a family business that began in 1920, roasts its own coffee in town and sells loose teas by the 100 g, from a Ceylon Orange Pekoe at 5,50 € to a 2025 Kagoshima sencha at 12,00 €; TeeGschwendner on the Schloßplatz is the Oldenburg shop of the national franchise chain, with the chain's 100 g prices: English Breakfast 5,80 €, Earl Grey Nr. 69 6,60 €, a Himalaya first-flush Darjeeling 9,50 €. A third shop, Tee & Feine Confiserie on Kurwickstraße, keeps some 300 teas over the counter. Prices below are in euros, VAT included.
Netherlands
Amsterdam
4 tea shops→
Amsterdam's loose-leaf shops are small and spread across the city: a tea and ceramics shop in a tiny old house in the centre, a single-origin shop in the Czaar Peterbuurt, the Amsterdam tea house of Moychay on Rozengracht and a tea bar in De Baarsjes. Prices below are in euros with VAT included, read on each shop's own site; most sell from 25 g or 50 g, and Moychay also sells much of its list in 7 g samples.
Groningen
4 tea shops→
Groningen's tea shopping fits in a short walk through the city centre: the Simon Lévelt coffee and tea shop on Zwanestraat, a stone's throw from the Martinitoren, and Yourdailyteacup on Nieuwe Ebbingestraat, a tea shop run by a tea sommelier with a second branch in Leeuwarden. Two other shops sell loose tea alongside other things: Batsu, a Japanese goods shop on Pottebakkersrijge with sencha, genmaicha, hojicha and matcha, and Dille & Kamille on Grote Kromme Elleboog with its own-brand organic teas in 65 to 75 g bags. Prices below are in euros with VAT included.
Utrecht
5 tea shops→
Utrecht's tea fits inside the canal ring. Simon Lévelt, the Dutch coffee and tea house founded in 1826, has its shop on the Vismarkt by the Oudegracht, a stone's throw from the Domtoren, with organic loose teas sold mostly from 100 g: Earl Grey at €5.80, Sencha at €5.60, Ti Kuan Yin at €10.40. Kusmi Tea runs its own boutique inside de Bijenkorf on Sint Jacobsstraat, with 100 g bags of its French-made organic teas at €12.70 to €16.20 and jasmine pearls at €44.50. Three other shops sell loose tea alongside other things: Dille & Kamille on the Oudegracht, with 75 g bags of its house teas at €4.25 to €6.95; ZININ, a delicatessen on Burgemeester Reigerstraat that stocks Kusmi tins; and Fair & Vintage on Zadelstraat, a fair-trade gift shop with organic loose tea at €3.50 for 50 g. Prices below are in euros, VAT included.
Thailand
Portugal
Bulgaria
France
Finland
Panama
Malaysia
Taiwan
Taipei
3 tea shops→
Taipei is the easiest place in the world to buy Taiwanese tea at the source: high-mountain oolongs from Alishan, Shanlinxi and Dayuling, Muzha Tieguanyin, Wenshan Baozhong from Pinglin, Oriental Beauty from Beipu and Miaoli, Ruby No. 18 black from Sun Moon Lake and Sanxia Bi Luo Chun green, sold in 35 g to 150 g packs and tins. The three houses on this page are a merchant founded in 1862 with six shops in the city, a Yongkang Street tea bar that sells only Taiwanese leaf, and a single-origin shop in the Minsheng Community. The 1842 and 1890 houses of Dadaocheng and Changchun Road sell over the counter only.
Kaohsiung
2 tea shops→
Kaohsiung buys its tea the Taiwanese way: high-mountain oolongs by the 75 g or 150 g vacuum pack, from Alishan, Shanlinxi, Lishan and Dayuling, plus the black teas of Sun Moon Lake. The two houses on this page are a 1971 family merchant with its flagship on Jianguo 1st Road and a second-generation tea space in Daliao where a tea master pours free tastings by appointment. Prices run from NT$ 200 for 150 g of Si Ji Chun to NT$ 1,499 for 100 g of a wild black tea from Kaohsiung's own mountains. The city's oldest houses, from 1943 and 1946, sell over the counter only.
Costa Rica
Heredia
3 tea shops→
Heredia is coffee country, and its tea comes from one tea bar and the supermarkets: Sencha Tea Co. runs its Tea Bar Oxígeno inside the Oxígeno Human Playground mall in San Francisco de Heredia, selling loose leaf by the bag next to the drinks it pours, while the Walmart across from the San Francisco church and the two Mas x Menos branches in Heredia centro and Heredia Sur carry the Twinings, Bigelow, Mondaisa and Manza Té shelf. Prices below are in colones: Sencha prints its prices before the 13 % IVA that is added at checkout, and supermarket shelf prices include it.
San José
3 tea shops→
San José is coffee country, and its tea runs through the Greater Metropolitan Area rather than the old centre: Sencha Tea Co. pours and sells its loose leaf at six Tea Bars in San Pedro, Curridabat, Escazú, Moravia and Santa Ana, while the Walmart and Mas x Menos branches of the province carry the Twinings, Bigelow, Mondaisa and Manza Té shelf. Prices below are in colones; Sencha prints its prices before the 13 % IVA that is added at checkout, and supermarket shelf prices include it.
Norway
Oslo
2 tea shops→
Oslo's tea is sold by two houses with roots elsewhere and shops in the centre: A.C. Perch's Thehandel, the Copenhagen tea merchant founded in 1835, has run its own shop and tearoom at Kirkegata 5 since November 2017, selling loose tea by the 100 g, and Palais des Thés keeps two shops in the city, on Bogstadveien in Majorstuen and on Grensen downtown, with its Grand Cru single-garden teas next to the organic everyday range. Both sell online within Norway, and Norges Tehus, which blends and ships from Oslo, covers the rest of the country by post. Prices below are in kroner, VAT included.
Stavanger
2 tea shops→
Stavanger's tea comes from the city's coffee people. Kaffehuset, a tea and coffee shop that has traded in the centre for over 50 years, now at Østervåg 15 near Klubbgata, sells loose tea in 100 g bags at well under the Oslo houses' prices, from a 62 kr Gunpowder to a 199 kr Japanese Sencha, and Husets Kaffebrenneri, a roastery at Finnestadsvingen 11 with its own counter, carries the Dilmah range in boxes of 100 bags at 359 kr. Helmer Te & Kaffe on Breigata blends its own numbered teas. Prices are in kroner, VAT included.
Sweden
Argentina
La Plata
3 tea shops→
La Plata drinks mate first and tea second, and most of its tea is sold through dietéticas, the natural-food shops that weigh loose tea and single herbs by the 50 g next to a long yerba mate shelf, plus a specialty-coffee roaster with its own four-blend tea line in 125 g tins. The city's tea houses, on Calle 54 and around the centre, pour by the cup. Prices on this page run from AR$ 1.300 for 50 g of boldo leaves to AR$ 28.500 for a 100 g Dilmah tin of jasmine green tea.
Morón
3 tea shops→
Morón's tea is bought in Castelar, the leafy half of the partido: a family tea house in Castelar Sur that designs its own blends on black, green, oolong and white bases and sells them in 25 and 50 g, and the Castelar branch of New Garden, the health-food chain founded in 1934, whose loose-leaf shelf runs from Assam and Darjeeling to a pu-erh and a white, all by 100 g. In Morón centre a Mendoza producer's shop covers the mate side with its own yerba line. Prices on this page run from AR$ 1.761 for 100 g of peppermint to AR$ 13.000 for 50 g of Argentine oolong or 100 g of white tea.
More tea shops you can walk into
- Purple Cane TeaHouz Jalan Sultan· Kuala Lumpur
- The Path of Tea· Houston
- 吴裕泰 (Wu Yu Tai)· Beijing
- Lilybird & Company· York
- TakeT Tampere· Tampere
- Simon Lévelt Breda· Breda
- Tea Topia· Sofia
- TeaSource· St. Anthony
- Tea Master Matcha Cafe & Green Tea Shop· Los Angeles
- Admari· Miami
- Chado Tea Room – South Bay· Torrance
- Postcard Teas· London
- The Spice & Tea Exchange of Bentonville· Bentonville
- Urban Teahouse· Oklahoma City
- Salem's Tea House· Albuquerque
- Recess· Indianapolis
- La Casa del Té y Café· Zaragoza
- Fly Awake Tea House· Portland
- The Tea Room (Streetsville)· Mississauga
Online tea shops, country by country →
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