The Denman Island Tea Company.

The Denman Island Tea Company is a blender first and a shop second. Founded in 2011 on Vancouver Island by Brendan Waye, who the company says has spent more than 25 years in specialty tea and has owned and operated seven tea shops, it creates and blends much of its collection at its own facility in Courtenay and supplies independent tea retailers, cafés and hospitality partners across North America. The Kilpatrick Avenue address is that facility with a retail counter at the front: the same London Fog, Cream Earl Grey and Teaguy Masala Chai that end up on café menus, sold by the bag to anyone who walks in.

Behind the blends there is a serious list of straight teas. The black shelf runs from a Conventional Assam TGFOP, Irish Breakfast and Ceylon Idalgashinna to a Soom Estate first-flush Darjeeling, a Nepal Mist Valley, an Imperial Keemun and a wood-smoked Lapsang Souchong. The green side has China Gunpowder and Mao Jian, Long Jing, Jasmine Dragon Pearls, Sencha Matsu, a first-flush Hojicha and a Gyokuro Okumidori, with two matchas including the Kakitsubata. Oolong is small but pointed: an aromatic Anxi Tie Guan Yin, an Eastern Beauty and two Phoenix Dan Congs, plus a ten-year ripe pu'er and a Yunnan Silver Needle.

The base size is 75 g, and the everyday teas cost CA$17 at that size, with 250 g, 500 g and kilo bags for people who drink a lot of one thing; the finer leaves come in 12 g, 24 g or 50 g starter packs instead. The company also sells refillable tins and, since 2019, has been growing Camellia sinensis in a small experimental garden on Denman Island, which gave its first harvest in the summer of 2026. The counter at #13 – 2998 Kilpatrick Ave opens Monday to Friday from ten to four and Saturday from eleven to four; Canadian retail orders ship free over CA$100.