Tea shops · Hamilton, Canada
Tea shops · Hamilton, CanadaTea At The White House
Hamilton's independent tea house, in the village of Waterdown since 1999, with more than 250 loose-leaf teas and bags sized by the cup.
The shop sells tea the way a tea room thinks about it, in cups rather than grams: a Small Bag is 25 cups, whatever the leaf, and almost every one of them costs CA$ 9.
Tea At The White House opened on 1 September 1999 at 35 Main Street North in Waterdown, the village in the north of amalgamated Hamilton, and is owned and run by Connor Skingley and Andrew May. It is both a tea room and a shop: afternoon tea is served at seatings of 11:30, 12:00, 14:00 and 14:30, with reservations recommended, and the shelves hold more than 250 loose-leaf teas, with the black tea list alone running past a hundred, from single-estate Assams and Darjeelings to Ceylons, Keemuns and Kenyans.
Bags are sold in three sizes measured in cups, not weight: Small (25 cups), Medium (50) and Large (75). The Small Bag costs CA$ 9 for most of the list, including English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Assam Organic, Darjeeling Margaret's Hope, Ceylon Lover's Leap, Keemun Panda, Sencha, Cochin Masala Chai and rooibos; CA$ 10 for Ti Kuan Yin, Genmaicha, Hojicha and Formossa Gunpowder; CA$ 11 for Pai Mu Tan; CA$ 15 for Golden Monkey, Imperial Dragonwell and Jasmine Earthly Paradise; CA$ 20 for Quanzhou Milk Oolong and CA$ 25 for Gyokuro. The breakfast staples and Lapsang also come as a 500 g tea brick at CA$ 40.
The rest of the shop belongs to the tea room: fresh-baked English sweet scones, clotted cream, house jams, Walker's shortbread, teapots and infusers. Every online order is processed and shipped from the Waterdown shop, pickup in store is offered at checkout, and loose-leaf teas are final sale. The shop opens Thursday to Sunday from 11am to 5pm and closes Monday to Wednesday.
- prices
- 35
- tea types
- 7
- from
- CA$ 9
- shops
- 1
Where it is
Waterdown
35 Main Street North, Unit 1, Waterdown, ON L0R 2H0
Hours: Thu–Sun 11:00–17:00 · Mon–Wed closed
What to buy here
Darjeeling
Darjeeling Margaret's Hope (Small Bag)
from CA$ 9 · 25 cups
A Darjeeling from the Margaret's Hope garden at the same price as the house English Breakfast: a named estate for the cost of a blend.
See our page on this tea →Keemun
Keemun Panda (Small Bag)
from CA$ 9 · 25 cups
A Keemun, the Chinese black with cocoa and a wisp of smoke, sitting on the bottom price step of the list, which almost never happens.
See our page on this tea →Milk Oolong
Quanzhou Milk Oolong (Small Bag)
from CA$ 20 · 25 cups
A Quanzhou Milk Oolong, the creamy rolled oolong from Fujian, the one to buy here before trying the flavoured imitations elsewhere.
See our page on this tea →
The one worth the trip
Gyokuro (Small Bag)
from CA$ 25 · 25 cups
A gyokuro, Japan's shaded green tea, in a 25-cup bag: the most expensive leaf on this shelf and the one you taste at a lower temperature and a slower pace, ideally after an afternoon tea seating upstairs.
See our page on this tea →All prices
Open a tea to see who else sells it.
Teas you can find here
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