Herbal Approach

Leduc has a tea shop. It’s actually more of a health store/​tea shop. There are essential oils, and medicinal teas (like a detox tea, an energy tea, etc and there are several Ayurvedic teas too). The store is pretty small, it’s in the little strip mall with Minuteman Press, Marlin Travel and Basha Donair, but still the tea selection is pretty good. There are several boxes of teas from a company called Basilur. They also had gift baskets and some tea accessories, and of course loose tea. The loose teas are each in a small jar allowing you to smell the tea before you buy it. They’ve got some chai, some rooibos, some oolong, some green tea, some earl grey, some herbal teas… basically a little bit of everything. I counted 34 of the small jars on the one row of the wall, and there were 3 rows in total, plus more of the small jars on the counter, so I’d easily assume they have between 75 and 100 different types of bulk tea. Of course you can buy the bulk tea for brewing at home, but they also make tea drinks and tea lattes with any of the bulk teas. I got a tea latte with a smoked maple tea that was delicious. It kind of tasted like when you have oatmeal with maple syrup and the milk gets all mapley and delicious — the perfect breakfast tea. The latte only comes in one size but for $ 3 it was pretty large. I didn’t check to see if they offer milk substitutes like soy milk, almond milk, etc with the lattes.
At the front counter they also have an open box of different teas from that Basilur company, where you can mix and match 4 different individual tea bags for $ 1 — a nice way to sample what they have without spending too much.
There are two small tables, each table had two chairs, in the middle of the store. It’s nice there is some place to sit and enjoy the tea, but since the store is so small it feels like it could be a little cramped and crowded. There is free wifi with Shaw, so that’s a handy feature. I wouldn’t exactly think this store would be the best place to get work done at, although it wouldn’t be as busy/​crowded/​noisy as a Second Cup/​Tim Hortons/​Starbucks or the library in Leduc.
The man helping me was nice, but maybe a little bit too sales pushy. I’m the kind of person who likes when a salesperson asks, «how can I help you?» and then if I say I’m just looking the sales person will leave me alone. The man working (maybe the owner/​manager not sure) was a bit too eager to show me the teas that were there. I know what I want, and if not I’ll ask someone. He did give me a sample of a rooibos hibiscus tea that was very good. It was a bit tart and felt like it would be better as an ice tea than a hot tea, and with it being minus a billion outside I was definitely in a hot tea kind of mood.
In the end I got a box of a cream Earl Grey (20 tea bags), 25 grams of a detox tea (that smelled lemongrassy and delicious), and my tea latte and it came to $ 11.45 (or close to that) for everything. That’s not too bad for price. The only other places for tea in Leduc are the grocery stores/​bulk barn and your Tim Horton’s/chain coffeeshop locations. The teas there are ok, but you’re certainly not going to get the kind of variety of teas you would at a store like Herbal Approach, and considering prices I think Herbal Approach is probably a better deal. There are great tea shops in Edmonton too, but for a local not having to drive into the city is always nice (especially when it’s winter and the roads are bad… nothing like a nice cuppa tea in the winter).
I have a feeling this tea shop, like a lot of independent stores in Leduc, probably isn’t very busy. They are pretty new so hopefully more people will stop buy here if they are looking for tea, because it’s a nice enough shop with a good selection of teas at a decent price.