Sencha Tea Bar

Sencha Tea Bar opened in Uptown in 2002 under a different name: it was Tea Garden then, and by the shop's own account one of the first places in the Twin Cities to pour bubble tea. The rename came in 2015, when loose leaf moved to the front of the business. The counter is at 2601 Hennepin Ave S, and it still works as a bar as much as a shop — bubble tea, tea lattes and freshly brewed leaf are made in front of you.

The list we verified runs to forty-one teas, and almost every one of them is sold as a one-ounce portion, which is the whole idea: a tea costs about what a sandwich costs. The blacks — Assam, Keemun, Irish Breakfast, Kenya Black, Lapsang, Darjeeling, Earl Grey — sit between $3.99 and $5.99. The greens climb from pinhead gunpowder to gyokuro. There is one white, one pu-erh, one yerba mate, and a wall of botanicals sold by the two ounces: hibiscus, lemongrass, rose petals, licorice root, elderberries.

Among the tea-plant leaf only two items break the one-ounce rule, and both come in two: the ceremonial matcha and the Ali Shan oolong, which is the most expensive thing on the list. Beyond Uptown there are tea bars in Saint Paul, Woodbury and Madison, Wisconsin, and the same loose leaf ships nationwide, free over $49. Since 2024 the company has been part of Amplified Experiences, a Twin Cities beverage group formed when Sencha merged with Five Watt Coffee.