Violet Tea

Violeta, who gives the shop her name, started working in a tea company in 2012, training new staff and running workshops for customers, and went on to earn the Certified Tea Specialist title at the World Tea Academy. After five years she opened her own shop in Madrid in October 2017, inside the Plaza Río 2 centre on Calle de Antonio López, in Arganzuela, and added the online store in August 2020. The name is a play on the colours of tea: violet is the one you never see in this trade.

More than 120 teas and infusions are sold loose and listed by the 100 g, so the shelf reads as one long scale. At the top are the named lots: China Silver Needles BIO at 40 €, Jasmine Pearls at 27,50 €, Lung Ching BIO at 21,90 €, Da Hong Pao at 20,50 € and Fuding Pai Mu Tan at 13,30 €. At the everyday end, Gunpowder Pinhead at 7,20 €, Ceylon Uva St. James OP and Keemun Congou at 7,50 €, China Pu Erh at 8 € and Tie Guan Yin at 8,70 €.

Between those two ends sit the house's own ideas: a Milky Cinnamon Oolong, a País Tropical oolong, a Green Chai, a Pu Erh Mini Tuo Cha in pressed nests, and a Pu Erh that started as a Christmas edition in 2018 and stayed on the list all year because people kept asking for it. There is matcha, there are exclusive blends, and advice comes with the weighing. Online orders leave in 24 to 48 hours; in the shop, every order is weighed to the gram.