Araksa Tea Room

Araksa is a tea garden in the foothills of Ban Chang, in Mae Taeng, north of Chiang Mai: 111 acres at 520 metres, which the garden describes as one of Thailand's oldest. In 2014 it entered a new chapter under new owners, who set about restoring the land and its tea-making. The name comes from a Sanskrit word meaning to preserve, and the garden says it was the first in Thailand to certify both its farm and its tea factory as organic for the US and the EU.

The Tea Room brings that garden to a lane off Charoen Krung 38, in Bang Rak. It is also a restaurant: Thai cooking, homemade desserts and seasonal produce from local suppliers, with lunch from eleven, dinner from half past five and afternoon tea on weekends and public holidays. The tea bar turns the garden's teas into signature drinks and tea cocktails, and the room holds guided tastings and hands-on workshops. It opens from ten in the morning to ten at night and closes on Mondays.

The garden makes white, green, oolong and black tea and a set of botanical infusions, and all of it is on sale in small kraft bags. The black teas come in 40 g, the greens, the dark Silk Tea oolong and the Bluefly infusion of butterfly pea and lemongrass in 15 g, the White Peony in 20 g. The garden's production manager spent sixteen of his more than twenty-five years in tea in Darjeeling.