Mystea

Mystea was founded in 2011 by Anne Ricard, a tea sommelier, and her father Marc Ricard joined her as a partner a few years later. The shop at 381 rue King Est, in the east of Sherbrooke, opens seven days a week from 9:30 to 17:00, and a second store on boulevard Gréber in Gatineau keeps weekday hours. The house describes itself as a family business, and every container it sells is compostable or reusable. In the summer of 2022 the brand took on a new image and launched its own line of ready-to-drink iced teas and tisanes, canned in Québec and sold by the can or by the case.

The catalogue runs to roughly thirty black teas and as many greens, a dozen matchas (a ceremonial grade, a cooking grade and flavoured organic matchas such as mango, pineapple or coconut), seven oolongs from Dong Ding to a Quanzhou milk oolong, six white teas including Yin Zhen silver needle and Pai Mu Tan, and some fifty tisanes built on rooibos, chamomile, hibiscus and fruit. Pure origins sit beside house creations with names like Mojito aux Bleuets, S'mores or Sablé au Beurre, and a few Québec touches such as a maple green tea and a chai on roasted maté.

Every tea and tisane comes in four sizes: a small sample, 50 g, 100 g and 500 g, and the shop's own guide counts 20 to 25 cups from a 50 g bag at about 2 g per cup. Three free samples go into every online order, local delivery in Sherbrooke is free from CA$ 35 before tax, and shipping is free within Québec from CA$ 75 and in the rest of Canada from CA$ 125. Beyond the leaf, the shelves hold bubble tea kits, 4 L iced-tea concentrates for restaurants, matcha whisks and bowls, and gift boxes built around matcha, tisanes or iced tea.