Far Leaves Tea

I absolutely love this place. I come here when I need to do work or study and don’t want to be cooped up in my house. I love how peaceful it is. I also really enjoy the tea — the root berry tonic is amazing and probably my favorite, but I’ve also enjoyed the chrysanthemum tea and the lychee black tea. The staff has always been really pleasant when I’m there.

I’m partial to oolongs and greens and good quality oolongs are fairly rare in my area. I’m willing to drive 50′ to get here.
Their Alishan is divine but overpriced if you compare it to Pasadena’s Bird Pick: $ 50 for 4.75oz whereas Bird Pick (and others, in SF) sell 4oz of a very similar quality for $ 30.
Dong Ding is, for me, the best value: comforting warm and floral aroma, leaves are whole, very few twigs, it steeps quite comfortably 5 times, 4.75oz — $ 30.
Green Goddess has a beautiful emerald green color but the leaves (after steeping) look broken, with many twigs, the 3^rd steeping is already pushing it in terms of flavor which is slightly grassier and more simplistic than Dong Ding.
Osmanthus oolong is good but not as good as Bird Pick’s Osmanthus Milk Oolong.
Their Sencha is inferior.
I’d rather not drive all the way to San Francisco from the South Bay, so that’s the best oolong I can find along the way.
I also enjoyed having a tea inside. However a different table other than next to the window would have been too dark for me; I like to see the color of my tea and leaves…

A very relaxing place to stop by and take a break in. The vegetarian bun was really good and so was the tea. A very quiet and calm place… good place to study, draw, write or read… or even to meet up and catch up with a friend. They have a good variety of different teas which you make yourself at the table after the water heats up. I loved it and I would come back. Great experience in a matter of 15 – 20 mins. :)

I love this place! Amazing pork bun and taro bun snacks and delicious tea — can’t go wrong. Chill atmosphere. Great place for meetings, working, and hanging out when you want to SLOW DOWN.

Far leaves is a soul-​enriching experience Everything is aesthetically pleasing and beautiful from the music to the fragrances of the tea to the tastes and the warm joviality of the proprietress.
There are many teas to choose from either to drink there or to take home.
My highest recommendation.

Definitely a peaceful little tea house. The jasmine tea was on point. It has a relaxing atmosphere. It’s calm and quiet. If you want to come in for a relaxing time by yourself, to think, or to study, you should try it out. The snacks are also scrumptious.

My favorite study and/​or relaxing spot! Great tea selection and don’t forget to try the snacks! The burdock bun is the best :)

As far as most cafes go, this is great for tea. Though in regards to tea houses, it’s mediocre. A pretty good tea selection though it didn’t taste like the water was filtered, which most know is essential for good tea. The tea ware was so so. Atmosphere was relaxing but again, felt somewhat mediocre.
The service was very friendly and I was really impressed by the response from the owner to my original review (3 stars), which I’ll admit is perhaps a little too critical. I feel a greater appreciation for the tea house just reading his response and trust that it will eventually far surpass my overly critical standards ;-).

This is the spot for a grounded, Zen, pure experience of Tea.
I have not been to other tearooms in SF yet, mostly because from my google searches, it seems that a lot of them are more «trendy» or are culturally based in English High Noon fancy frills tea service (nothing wrong with them, but to me, Tea is an eastern thing). Atmosphere is spaciously intimate, music is subtle, but complimentary (Pandora did a stellar job with their jazz playlist today, mmm Ben Webster). The owner is lovely, and the entire place constantly reminds you «be here now.»

Great little spot for tasting many types of tea with affordable price. I’ve been there a couple of times recently and will soon be visiting again. Only wish is for them to have a keep quiet sign so the customers will need to maintain a low voice. It is a tea room after all, not a coffee shop.

I walked in and asked for a recommendation… something lovely. The guy at the front said, «for you, today, I’m feeling rosebuds,» and brewed me a cup of rosebud tea. It was lovely. The space was peaceful. And I was allowed to work quietly on my laptop while sipping lovely tea. (Wasn’t sure if it was a computer-​free zone. It wasn’t) It was a win.

Delightful place for a quiet conversation over tea or study nook. They have a great variety of loose leaf teas here, and all that I have tried are delicious. At the counter you can order snacks like mochi, taro buns, almonds, dates and the sort that go so well with the tea. This is one of the most relaxing places to sit and clear the mind while getting work done, in the Bay Area.

They have amazing mixes that alter the mind for enhancement, relaxation or pepping up, etc. love the classical environment, conducive to study and think over life a little :)

Great place, affordable price. They have a guest fee if you aren’t alone, it’s $ 2.00. Steam bun was pretty good. I wish they had powder matcha, the loose tea I had order made me sleepy.

My 8 year old and I have been coming here for about a year now to do our homework and enjoy a relaxing tea experience. The ambiance is rustic but calm and healing. We love this place so much we come once a week now. Our favorite is the Rose tea. We take it home and drink it here as well. There’s no better rose tea out there. We also like the White Lavender tea and Herbal Chai. We are not caffeine drinkers but at least we have some Herbal options although we wish there were more. We make a lot of Herbal teas at home. We also love the snack plates. We mix and match different snacks and it makes up a meal. The taro buns are my favorite. The only complaint we have is that we can’t get enough. Perhaps some seasonal teas and snacks would help. In the meantime we continue to enjoy our weekly visits.

Wow this place is amazing! Taiwanese owned, super quiet and inexpensive. I love this place :):):)

I wandered in here with my boyfriend hoping to have a cup of tea. We were entirely ignored by the staff even though the place wasn’t exactly busy. We ended up buying some loose leaf tea and heading on our way.

I’m glad on found this place! There’s a LOT of good tea options at very reasonable prices.
The gentleman at the counter was very kind and clearly knows his teas.
Parking is typical East Bay Street parking.
It was very quiet inside, I didn’t realize students study here as I went there to talk with a friend. A bit awkward in that sense.
I’d go back there for sure.

In all my years of attending undergraduate at Berkeley, I had no idea this little tea shop was just a few streets away. I stopped by here with a friend on a weekday afternoon for some studying and tea, and overall I liked the ambience as well as tea selections it offered.
The interior is a little dated-​feeling, but not in a way that made me feel like it was grimy or unclean. There are individual tables on one side, as well as raised tables and shoe-​free seating with low tables on the other. There are little decorations to set the mood here and there, and I thought it was a quite quaint and picturesque little shop. There are also hot water heaters at every table (
), which also means that there are outlets at each table! Fantastic for lap-​top studying, and there are plenty to go around.
If you order a pot of their hot teas, each comes with a glass teapot with a strainer inside, drinking cups, and a separate dish to put the tea strainer so the tea doesn’t get overly strong (
). This all comes in addition to the hot water kettle that is set at the right temperature for you, since some teas are best brewed with boiling water, others steeped in less than boiling water, and so on. I’m not well-​versed enough in tea culture to know how authentic all this was, but I enjoyed the experience and had a blast pouring and steeping and repouring (because who doesn’t love tea parties, right?).
We went with the osmanthus oolong (
) this first time, and it definitely did not disappoint. I’m an avid tea drinker, and I most often drink loose-​leaf teas from China or Taiwan, so the varieties offered here were right up my alley. I’ve never seen true osmanthus oolong (with the actual plant, not the processed powder or syrup) elsewhere, so I was very keen to try it out. Osmanthus has this wonderfully aromatic flowery scent, and that paired with the slight smokiness of the oolong was perfection. I would love to try the other varieties Far Leaves has to offer, but I have a slight suspicion that this one will be my weakness.
After some intense tea-​pouring and (some) studying, we were feeling hungry and ventured to try their little desserts. There were three flavors of mochi offered, and we opted for the taro and green tea (
). These were not bad, but not super memorable. The inside fillings were of different flavors that I now don’t recall, but I remember wishing that they had been clarified as well since I was expecting the entire thing to resonate with one flavor.
My friend also wanted to try their taro bun (
), which was nicely steamed to order. The bun itself was definitely reminiscent of Ranch 99 prepackaged frozen food though, so I probably wouldn’t get it again, not because it was bad, but because I didn’t think it was worth the price point per unit.
Service was friendly, wifi was decently fast, and the calming ambience of a tea shop as opposed to the ubiquitous coffee shops in the area was a nice change. I’ll definitely be back.

Far Leaves Tea is located within an understated block on San Pablo, and just a few doors down from Black Oak Books. If the web site guy that I was meeting hadn’t suggested it, I probably wouldn’t have recognized it driving by. What I did recognize was the nearby corner of Parker and San Pablo, which was alleged location of a solicitation of prostitution case, of which I served on hung jury several years ago. My point is that in that piece of history and my current meeting over tea, I had no clue what was really going on in the neighbourhood.
I enjoyed my pot of tea, the conversation, and the cozy, yet comfortable room and seating. I found Far Leaves Tea to a quiet and refreshing alternative to the much louder artisan coffee shop scene. It was easy to talk, to relax, and discuss interesting subjects in a unhurried and peaceful manner.