Global Infusion

Global Infusion was founded in 2004 to sell organic herbs, specialty consumables and fairly traded handcrafts, and it has grown into a shop of hundreds of bulk loose teas and botanicals from every growing region, at 143 Diamond Avenue SE in the East Hills neighbourhood, at the corner of Cherry Street. It opens from 10am to 6pm Monday to Thursday and to 5pm on Friday and Saturday, and keeps a café where a cup of anything on the wall can be drunk before the ounce is bought.

The online shop lists 139 teas, every one priced per ounce, and the in-store bulk tea and herb menus are published as PDFs. The entry level is an organic Gunpowder at US$ 3.25, with a yerba mate blend at US$ 4, an organic English Breakfast and a Masala Chai at US$ 4.50 and an organic Earl Grey at US$ 4.90. The middle of the list is where it gets interesting: an organic Jasmine Green at US$ 6.45, an organic Genmaicha at US$ 7.05, an Iron Goddess of Mercy at US$ 7.10, and a Keemun Mao Feng and a shu pu-erh tou cha at US$ 7.40. At the top sit a Golden Lily milk oolong at US$ 14.55 and organic Silver Needles at US$ 21.55.

Orders are processed within two business days and shipped by USPS, at US$ 6 up to US$ 29.99, US$ 8 up to US$ 74.99 and free above US$ 75. Tea shares the room with fair-trade handcrafts and the café, so it is not a pure tea house, but it is the deepest loose-leaf wall in Grand Rapids and the one place in the city where a per-ounce price can be compared across a hundred-odd teas on a single shelf.