At Haven, we love our tea. From steeped tea to latte to the weekly specialty drinks, we serve tea in all shapes and forms! Considering how big tea is to us, we can’t help but spotlight our tea supplier, Teastore.

A lovely local tea shop and cafe located in Byward Market, Teastore supplies the people in Ottawa and across the continent (Haven included!) with 300+ varieties of local & international teas! We had a chat with Amber, the manager of Teastore, and learned about the store’s back story, their process of selecting teas, and more cool facts about their local business. 

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Can you please introduce yourself and Teastore?

My name is Amber. I've been working at Teastore for about a year. The owner, Joshua, is one of my really good friends. He took over Teastore and has been running it for seven years. 

The tea store itself has been open for 25 years. It's definitely a staple in the Byward market. We have customers who have been coming for 20 years. It's just a lovely little community. 

Teastore carries a huge variety of teas from across the world. Can you share a little bit about how the tea is selected?

We love to serve loose-leaf teas because they are the best and the freshest. We have our supplier in Toronto, who goes through a pretty heavy process of testing for chemicals, pesticides, and so on, of different teas. They are called the Metropolitan Tea Company. And then we also have a couple of other distributors that we get from as well. 

We have teas from almost everywhere. To be included in our selection, the tea needs to be ethically farmed and fresh. We have rooibos teas, organic teas, and ethical trade teas. We also have a variety of estate teas which come from very specific farms, such as Assam Gingia and Kenyan black tea. And then we have English blends. We also have medicinal herbs that we always get organic, and because they're medicinal, we don't want pesticides or chemicals sprayed on them.

Source: Instagram @_teastore_

How did the pandemic affect your business?

It's been really good through the past three years because we do online sales. We ship all through Canada and the States. It was interesting that we didn't lose any sales because everyone just got tea shipped to them. I think it's an interesting culture because it's kind of similar to coffee - people do need to drink their tea, and as soon as they run out a little bit, they get this panic feeling and need to order tea right away. 

People just don't stop drinking tea! I think people may start drinking tea even more because it's healthier. And people are at home even more so they pick up this cozy feeling of having a cup of tea in the afternoon. 

Source: Instagram @_teastore_

I see that you also have a cafe at your store. Can you share a bit about it?

We have a cafe with about six tables. There, we have desserts and scones. All of the desserts and scones are made with tea instead of water. For example, today we have strawberry rose tea scones, and they're really good. 

What we have are mostly just sweets right now, but then we do have sweet and savory scones. The sweet scones are definitely the must-tries. People come all the time for them, and I feel like we could never change their recipes because they would just get really angry (laughs). 

The current owner developed the savory scone recipe. The sweet scone recipe has been around for about 15 years. 

Source: Instagram @_teastore_

What's your favorite part of running Teastore? 

People usually get blown away by our tea lattes, like our matcha lattes, and our desserts. They always leave happy almost, you know?

Do you have any exciting projects coming up at Teastore?

We are just finishing up renovations. So I'm going be starting to do vintage popups and artisan popups at the tea store, featuring local artists from the Ottawa area. That will be on Saturdays. 

I also really want to do a candle-lit tea evening. So like, candlelight and drink tea and listen to jazz. That'll be on Fridays, probably in March, or whenever it starts getting warmer and people can come down easier.

I just want to bring more people to the Market. It needs a little bit more of a hip environment to go to. So I’m just trying to make Teastore a little bit more of a hub for vintage and artisan stuff, and local artists and music.

It is so cool that you could come down to the Byward Market and shop for everything, all of your groceries, tea, your little treats, your bread, and it's like you could do all of your groceries shopping down in the vibrant markets. I love it, and I wish it was busier down here for everybody, you know? 

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Get a taste of Teastore’s loose-leaf teas at Haven!

We serve a wide variety of loose-leaf teas from Teastore, including Chamomile, Japanese Matcha, Earl Grey Cream, Peach Rooibos, Karma Sutra Chai, English Breakfast, and more. You can have them steeped, as a latte, or catch them in a weekly featured drink!