Tea Trader

Tea Trader's story starts with its owner, Ted, who worked with commodity traders in London in the late 1980s and drank his morning tea from a small merchant in Cape Town. After a family move to Canada he sold tea at market stalls in Toronto, then moved west: the name and premises date from 1993, and the first shop opened in April 1994 in Inglewood, sharing space with an antiques dealer on 9th Avenue SE. Over three decades it moved along that street several times before settling at 1902 11th Street SE, in Ramsay.

The shop imports directly and sorts its list the way a tea buyer would: by country, region and estate. India runs from Darjeeling and Assam to Dooars and Nilgiri, China from Anhui and Fujian to Yunnan and Zhejiang, and there are teas from Nepal, Formosa, Ceylon, Japan and Kenya, plus rooibos, honeybush and mate. New teas arrive from April to October; in early October 2026 the sacks from India included a Castleton muscatel Darjeeling and this year's Nahorhabi Golden Tips. Every tea comes in 125, 250 or 500 g bags, or in a tin.

Tea Trader was one of the first tea sellers on the internet, active on the tea newsgroups from late 1994 and on its own domain since 1995, and it still sells online as Mr Maxey's Tea, which ships within Canada; shipping to the United States is suspended because of tariffs and border delays. The Ramsay shop opens Tuesday to Saturday and on Sunday afternoons, and is closed on Mondays. For a first visit, pick one country and buy two gardens side by side.