Teaopia

I was excited to try a new tea and nearly choked when I paid for it. I’m sorry, but the price is not worth it. I don’t care how educated the staff are about tea or how much variety they stock. I am not a high roller so I’ll go home and soak my cheap tea bags, which must have at least one health benefit and don’t break the bank.

While having a teashop in the mall introduces people to loose leaf who may not otherwise get started on it, anyone who knows anything about quality tea would turn around and run from this shop. Terrible quality tea. A company focused on capital, without any heart involved, without producing a decent product. Soul sucking and awful. The Starbucks of tea. Save your money and your tastebuds from god awful tea. Visit one of the several locally owned, independent shops where the people actually care. I regret giving Teaopia even one star.

I purchased a 50g sampler of their Dragonwell. It works out to $ 136.20 per pound. To be totally blunt, this tea simply isn’t worth it. For $ 60.00 per pound you can get far superior Dragonwell at Ten Rens at Pacific Place and for $ 75.00 per pound at the Tea Trader in Inglewood. To give the readers a comparison, the finest quality Dragonwell available in Canada (1^st Flush 2010 Spring Harvest) sells at Ten Rens for $ 150.00 per pound and it literally blows this fair to average grade Teaopia tea right out the water (no puns intended). It will knock your socks off. Spend the extra $ 15.00; you will not regret it.
Teaopia’s quality is worth no more than $ 30.00 to $ 40.00 per pound. It is full of broken leaf (absolutely forbidden in top Chinese run teashops for that high of price) and its taste is rustic at best and slightly bitter. Good Dragonwell should be smooth, sweet and have a hint of aspargus and chesnut in the flavour profie. Their tea has none of this. The Oolong (Ti Guan Yin) they sell for about $ 140.00 per pound is also overpriced. One can buy, at Ten Rens, tea of equivalent quality for about $ 60.00 or less per pound. For about $ 140.00 per pound, Ten Rens will sell you among the finest Oolong available anywhere, far superior to the Teaopia product.
Follow the brewing instructions that Teopia has on their website and you will drink a thin lacklustre tea. They recommend 1 teaspoon of oolong or Dragon Well for 8 oz of water brewed for 3 to 5 minutes. The Chinese experts recommend 2 teaspoons of Oolong for each 150 ml at 95 degrees for 2 minutes. That is 320 percent more tea that Teopia. If you really want to enjoy using traditional Chinese method (gongfu), a 240 ml (8oz) teapot should contain 80 ml of tea leaf, about 6 tablespoons, and be brewed for roughly 10 seconds at a time. You will get 10 infusions, as long as the oolong is top quality, and the essence of what the tea is all about will shine through. One teaspoon for an 8 oz vessel, not if you actually want to enjoy your tea.
If you want truly top quality tea you will not find it here. However, it still better than anything you will buy at the supermarket by a long shot.

This location of Teaopia is relatively new and I stumbled upon it while at the mall.
They specialize in loose teas, which you can buy by 50g. The prices vary from $ 4 per 50g to $ 29 for matcha. I’ve never seen so many tea options in my life! They have varieties of white, black, green, oolong, rooibos, as well as yerba, which I’ve never even heard of. There is all types of flavour of each kind, as well as wellness blends and fruit blends. They carry flowering teas and rare teas as well. They have a great selection of tea pots, cast iron, yixing, their «tea master» brewing system and infusers. I found the information on yerba tea very interesting, they even have the traditional bombilla to drink it out of. They have the teapoia starter kit at $ 55 and other tea sets too. Things were very reasonably priced, a nice cast iron pot was around $ 60, the teamaster was $ 20, mugs were $ 20, other pots were only $ 35! You can even shop online!
I sampled their after lunch tea blend and it was very yummy. I decided to try their wellness blend that was recommended for flus and colds. It had green tea, raspberry leaves, along with a bunch of other things in it. I got it cold and it cost me $ 6.50, it was a decent size. I waited for a bit for it to steep. It turned out to be probably the best tea blend I have ever tasted!
I’m really glad I tried Teaopia, it is awesome! I have definitely found a new place to pick up a healthy alternative to a latte, but it is just as tasty! This it a place you have to try!