Teance is a truly amazing place for tea. It’s a gorgeous shop. When you walk in, you are immediately offered a sampling of tea. Immediately in front of you, there is a little pond with koi fish swimming around (yes, inside the store!) and water pouring from the ceiling to a really dramatic effect. The ambiance is beautiful! What about the tea? There is a tea bar (open until 6pm) – where you can order individual cups, or go on tea “flights,” wine-tasting style. I highly recommend this! You are given a menu, and are able to choose three different teas. Of course, the tea is incredible. During the tasting, the server (is there a tea equivalent of a sommelier?) tells you about the tea and some of its history. In my experience, this is the best part of the tasting. The staff was very knowledgeable and informed and was able to answer all of our questions, but moreover quite friendly and amiable too. We were also given melon seeds to snack on in between teas, which were delicious.
I enjoyed my experience at Teance so much I really hesitate to say anything negative at all! But if I had one complaint it would be that the tea is very expensive. All of the teas offered here are hand-selected every season from artisanal, family-owned tea farms across Asia. The quality of the tea is reflected in this. There is of course a price to pay for such high quality.
I’d definitely recommend trying a tasting at Teance, though, at least once – and even buy some tea if you feel like treating yourself to something extra special!
This place offers so many pretty teas I am always a little intimidated when I go in! But really, it’s a great shop. There’s such a variety of fine, fragrant teas to smell, I could browse here for hours. The style is Asian, but there are a lot of other influences at work here, as well. The staff is very friendly and welcoming, and eager to answer any questions one might have. There are many accessories available for tea, too, and everything available is very aesthetically pleasing. I love the little tins they use for the tea, styled to highlight the beauty of what is within. At Lupicia, there are often a couple of teas out for sampling, too, typically unique and flavorful.
I want to buy so much tea every time I come here but it would get so costly! Really, though, I can’t get enough of this place. I always make it a point to stop in every time I’m in the area. Even if one does not make a purchase here, it is easy to appreciate the artful qualities of the tea.
This is a really cozy place with a nice atmosphere for meeting up with friends and just hanging out. It’s kind of like a cafe with pastries and snacks as well as tea, but once again their tea is definitely the highlight. I went with my friend one rainy afternoon and we had quite a nice time just sitting and talking for hours there over our cups of tea (which were periodically refilled with hot water by the very friendly staff). The style of the place would probably be most accurately described as modern, with definite Asian influences; mostly, it is well-lit and comfortable. It’s a shop, so if you fall in love with the tea you try you can easily take home a tin of it. I love the way the tea tins are arranged – each different “type” of tea (black, green, etc.) has its own element on its label (fire, water, earth, etc.). I bought a tin of Tie Guan Yin oolong and I love it – very aromatic, with a lingering flavor. I’ve also received a tin of their O’Haggerty Breakfast blend as a gift, which I definitely recommend highly as an Irish breakfast-style tea. My friend had Peach Black which both looked and smelled really beautiful.
Perhaps a bit pricier than some cafes in the area, but well worth it, I think, for an afternoon out. All told, a lovely little place to go for tea.
A really charming place! Situated comfortably in the Epicurious Garden on Shattuck Avenue, the Imperial Tea Court is a great place to try Chinese tea in a calm and beautiful atmosphere. Inside, a little dim-sum restaurant with hanging lanterns and beautiful tea-wares on display. Outside, a lovely garden with a zen-feeling, and plenty of seating on a sunshiny day. They serve their tea with a traditional gaiwan service (which the servers are happy to explain to you if you’ve never experienced it before), although they do have iced tea available too.
It’s a great place to go for a light lunch of dim-sum (try the shrimp dumplings – they are divine!) – but of course the real flavor of the place is in the tea. They have quite an impressive selection. So far my favorite is their superior puerh, which is deep and earthy. I’ve also tried their phoenix oolong (delicious, of course) and their orchid oolong (which really tastes as though you’re drinking a flower). Every time I go, I find something new I love about the Imperial Tea Court. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
