OrienTés.

OrienTés opened in 2015 as a family business founded by Lucía Rosario Malbernat, an international tea sommelier, with her daughters and her partner, to bring loose-leaf tea culture to Mar del Plata. The house at Av. Jara 561 is its only address and holds three things at once: a tea room where you can stay for the afternoon, a shop with a bazaar of teaware for the ceremony, and a registered blend factory whose RNPA numbers appear on each house blend.

The imported teas are sold loose by 25 g, so the shelf is cheap to explore: Chinese oolong, Japanese sencha, Bi Luo Chun and Gunpowder at AR$ 5.000, Lapsang Souchong at AR$ 6.470, Ceylon Supreme at AR$ 8.160, Earl Grey at AR$ 8.660, Pai Mu Tan at AR$ 12.980 and Darjeeling at AR$ 13.270, with a Chinese matcha in ceremonial and culinary grades. Bulk goes up to 500 g and a kilo, and the same teas also come in glass jars for the shelf at home.

The house blends sit on Argentine black and green tea from AR$ 4.000 for 25 g: Frutos del Bosque, Coco Dulce, Rosa de Chocolate, Sabor de Oriente with honey, apple and cinnamon, a Patagonia with blackcurrant and rosa mosqueta, three chais and two flavoured rooibos. A drawer of single herbs follows, manzanilla, menta, cedrón, tilo, boldo, poleo and marcela. Workshops, tastings and factory visits run on a monthly calendar, and orders ship across the country by Correo Argentino.