There are hundreds of online tea shops. I've narrowed down the list to ten of the best tea stores where I personally buy loose leaf tea, so you'll know where to buy tea online.
Over 700 tea brands sell tea online. Here are my personal recommendations for the best tea shops selling quality loose leaf tea. I often shop online for my tea because I can't always purchase quality loose tea near me.
Criteria for the best tea shops:
- Every tea shop specializes in something different, whether it be single estate tea, flavored, herbal, green, black, Puerh, matcha, or origin-specific tea. The types of tea available are quite varied and well represented on this list.
- The websites listed here all sell premium tea. I've categorized them by tea specialty so you can get to know each shop.
- The shops I've listed carry the best loose leaf tea, sell at the retail level, plus ship internationally. They are all trustworthy tea brands that I personally shop for when I buy tea online.
This is a good place to get acquainted with the world of specialty tea. As you refine your tea palate, you might become a little fussier! Fortunately, there are many choices in online tea stores.
Table of contents
So where is the best place to buy tea online?
Adagio Tea
Best Tea Online: Editor's Choice
Adagio Teas specializes in an expansive variety of loose leaf teas and teaware. They source directly from the artisan grower. The teas I have tried are always fresh and have a superb flavor. You can find almost any tea from herbal tea blends to premium single estate teas in their Masters' Collections. Adagio is one of my favorites shops to buy tea online.
Adagio depends heavily on reviews, which are very helpful when buying their teas. They also include information about the origin of the tea and brewing guides. A New Jersey-based company owned by a mother and son team. Ships internationally.
The Masters Collections from Adagio Teas offers the best loose leaf tea - which I highly recommend. Premium loose tea sourced directly from the artisan farmers who tender them.
Palais des Thés
Best Tea Online: All-Around
Palais des Thés is a popular European tea store specializing in single estate, flavored teas, and herbal teas. They have quite a wide variety of quality fresh teas from tea estates around the world. François-Xavier Delmas is the founder and has been touring the world’s tea plantations for more than 20 years, searching for the finest teas.
They feature teas from Darjeeling to Shizuoka, from Taiwan to the Golden Triangle. Palais des Thes is a great place to start trying out different teas. It is a boutique-style tea shop. They have sample sets available and ship internationally. They also have boutiques all around France, Belgium, and Japan. In the US, they have a boutique in New York City, along with a Tea School. Ships internationally.
The Tea Spot
Best Tea Online: All-Around
The Tea Spot is an online tea shop and retail store selling handcrafted teas and innovative Steepware. The Tea Spot offers some of the best tea online specializing in gourmet loose tea with handcrafted, signature blends, and single-estate full leaf teas. You will find a large variety of health-focused tea special blends on their tea website. Every order comes with a loose tea sampler. The company was founded in 2004 by Maria Uspenski, a cancer survivor drawn to the health benefits of whole leaf tea during her recovery.
Her message is simple and powerful: tea in its freshest form renders premium flavor and unmatched health benefits. With a steadfast mission to foster health and wellness through tea, The Tea Spot donates ten percent of all sales in-kind to cancer and community wellness programs. The Tea Spot is a Colorado-based Certified B Corp, woman-owned and operated as a philanthropic business. Another one of my favorite shops to buy tea online.
Mountain Rose Herbs
Best Herbal Tea Shop
Mountain Rose Herbs is one of the best sources of herbal tea. Their quality control is excellent, sourcing sustainable herbs. Mountain Rose is impeccable about what they do.
The philosophy of Mountain Rose Herbs is "people, plants, and the planet before profit." They follow the ancient traditions of the botanical world's natural gifts and the healing beauty of nature. I've received some excellent herbs from Mountain Rose Herbs.
Matcha Source
Best Matcha Tea
Matcha Source tea comes in different grades. Alissa White is the Founder of Matcha Source, an online retailer of premium matcha tea and specialty utensils to prepare and enjoy matcha. This special tea shop focuses strictly on matcha, from ceremony grade to kitchen grade and everything in-between.
Young leaves plucked early in the harvest produce delicate and vegetal flavors. Mature leaves contain coarser matter from stems and veins and taste more astringent. MatchSource teas are hand-picked by the Yahagi River in Japan. International shipping.
Material Matcha Uji
Best Matcha Tea
Material Matcha Uji crafts the highest quality matcha green tea in the world with a simple idea: aim for the purity of the material. If you love matcha, this is one of the best shops to buy matcha tea online. Material Matcha works directly with local farmers, pushing them always to keep using little-known, ancient techniques. Material Matcha teas are one-of-a-kind and extremely rare: less than 100kg are produced every year, a grade of loose green tea that has never been brought outside of Japan before.
Their product range contains 24 products that meet all needs, from beginner to expert. They have Matcha starter kits, accessories, and matcha packs.
Vahdam Tea
Best Indian Tea
Vahdam Tea specializes in garden-fresh Indian teas. Vahdam is another one of my favorite places to buy tea online. All their teas are procured directly from plantations and tea growers within 24-48 hours of production, packaged garden fresh, and shipped directly from India's source.
By eliminating all middlemen, they make available fresh, high-quality teas. This makes sure that the growers can retain all earnings in the region where these divine teas are grown. This process helps every farmer get a better price for their produce—a truly ethical, fair-trade tea shop to buy tea online.
Teabox
Best Indian Tea
Teabox is an Indian-based online tea company specializing in high-quality single estate Indian grown loose leaf black tea. Sourcing the freshest teas from Indian tea estates in Darjeeling, Assam, and the Nilgiris and freshest teas from Nepal.
Teabox Darjeeling and Nilgiri black teas are some of my personal favorites. And you can't make a good English Breakfast tea without a good Assam. Try the Margaret's Hope Moonlight Spring White Tea! Ships internationally.
Teatulia
Best Indian Tea
Teatulia specializes in Indian teas. A Denver-based tea company co-founded by Dr. Kazi Anis, and Linda Appel Lipsius focuses on sustainability. Teatulia is one of the few 100% organic tea brands produced by the women of Bangladesh. Teatulia teas are single garden teas, grown, and hand-plucked in the Kazi & Kazi Tea Estate's beautiful tea gardens in Northern Bangladesh, then delivered directly to the consumer.
As tea gardens go, this one is fairly new. It was cultivated from virgin land nestled against the Himalayas to the North and the Brahmaputra and Ganges Rivers to the South in 2,000. They offer a wide variety of teas and have won many awards at the North American Tea Championships. You should definitely go to their website to check out the co-operative programs they have developed for the people's economic prosperity in the region—international shipping.
TeaVivre
Best Chinese Tea
TeaVivre specializes in authentic Chinese teas. TeaVivre means Tea for Life. They carry a wide variety of unflavored teas, loose leaf green tea, and teaware. TeaVivre is a group of tea lovers and aficionados from China, Canada, and France. All living in China, they frequently visit China's tea plantations tracking down only truly exceptional teas.
I buy a lot of my Chinese tea online from TeaVivre. Known for their green teas, some rare green teas such as Ming Qian Long Jing. TeaVivre is an excellent source to buy green tea online. China also produces some of the best black teas, of which you will find many here. Samples are available. It is compliant with the European Union, which has much more stringent allowances for residues than the United States. Really high-quality teas - ship from China internationally.
Verdant Tea
Verdant Tea is a marketplace for small family tea farmers, directly from their farm to your cup. This Minnesota tea shop has a unique approach to tea shopping. You don't shop by the tea type or by the country - you shop by the farmer.
The estates are listed, and you virtually meet the family growing the tea. They specialize in Chinese oolong tea, black, green, white, Puerh, and herbals. Their teas have gotten some outstanding ratings. Verdant Tea always provides steeping instructions for both the western brewing and gong fu style. They have some beautiful gaiwan teaware.
Yunan Sourcing
Best Pu Erh Tea
Yunnan Sourcing is a top online tea store for Pu Erh tea. Excellent selection of ripe and raw Puerh, oolongs tea, black tea, and white tea. They also sell some unusual teas like purple tea and yak butter tea. Puerh samples are available. Their raw Puerh teas are produced mostly from a single village or mountain source in small batches.
All raw cakes are processed at every stage in the traditional method to ensure the best possible long-term aging outcome. Their ripe Puerh is selected based on their taste profile, fermentation degree, leaf quality, and future aging potential. Ships internationally from China and the United States.
Of course, this is purely a suggestive list. I hope you find it helpful and enjoy some of the best tea brands I've recommended. If so, please share this list with your tea-loving friends.
What tea shops have you tried? What are your favorite tea brands? Share in the comments. I'd love to hear from you!
Tea for Beginners Start Here >>
There is one Chinese tea producer’s shop you may want to check, helloteababy.com, the point I love is about the knowledge they share, all first hand in and out, some may different from what we heard in English world, it’s a real master’s work.
Their teas are quite interesting too, as they are not just buy-then-sell, they create their teas, they even show you how can a bush be made into black tea and oolong tea too.
I am kind of fans of their Instagram, real people, farmer’s daily life, their challenges etc, you will see why their teas are so unique as the producer thinks a lot. Cheers!
They do look interesting. They have a different business model to support the small tea farmer from what I can tell. It looks similar to a CSA or Community Supported Agriculture that's popular in the US farm to table movement. By purchasing a CSA membership you actually own a piece of the harvest from the farm. You become part of the local farm. It's a way for small farmers to stay in business. Basically they are selling future crops.
You missed two great, online tea shoppes. One is Arbor tea, and they are one of my favorites. Not only do they have quality teas but they are sustainable. All of their packaging is biodegradable including the bag, glue on the bag for the label, as well as they label. So you can feel good knowing that no part of their shipment ever need be tossed in the trash.
The second favorite to me is Golden Moon Tea. This is a special tea company. They pride themselves on being pure and that is what you get. You will never find any natural flavors on any of their teas. One of my favorites id the madagascar vanilla/black tea blend. It is just what it sounds like. They take whole vanilla bean pods and mix them with large barrels of tea. This tea sits for several weeks while the essence of vanilla inhabits the leaves. No natural flavors. They also have a wonderful jasmine tea and jasmine perals. I buy a lot of tea from these folks as it is nice knowing that I'm just getting pure tea. Oh, and their sinharaja, which is a ceylon tea, is my daily go-to tea.
Nice! I'll check them out. Thank you!
I have been looking for Orchestral Tea since I had some years ago in New England and I cannot find it anywhere. PLEASE HELP
I've never heard of them and they don't come up in a simple Google search. Rate Tea has a very comprehensive list of tea brands and they don't show up there either.
Hi Wanda,
https://colnect.com/en/teabags/list/country/225-United_States_of_America/brand/10246-Orchestral_Tea/series/0-Unknown
The link above takes you to a selection of overwraps picturing several flavors of Orchestral Tea. Catawiki also lists the brand:
https://www.catawiki.com/catalog/tea-bags-and-tea-labels/manufacturers-brands/546845-orchestraltm-tea
The tea does not appear to be in production.
Dan
My favorite tea company is Lumbini Tea. I stumbled upon them while searching for a unique tea gift for a friend. I was taken about by their teas from my first sip. Their Sinharaja Wiry Tips is the finest tea I have ever had. Little wonder it is the world's most awarded black tea. They also are very generous with their samples. It allowed me to journal their different varieties for future ordering. I'd definitely try them.
Yes, I've had Lumbini Tea's Sinharaja Wiry Tips before and I agree they are excellent.
The Stone Leaf Teahouse has many fine teas and a very informative website. They are located in Vermont and ship anywhere. https://www.stoneleaftea.com/
Thanks for sharing. Their website looks beautiful!
Tea sommeliers love Camellia Sinensis from Montreal. They deliver in most countries. They have a book on teas: Tea: History, Terroirs, Varieties by Kevin Gascoyne. I am taking the whole year certificate to become a tea sommelier myself and love going to their shops! Their book was one of the highly recommended book from the Academy of Tea as well.
Yes their book is excellent. I do have a copy of it. Congratulations on your upcoming tea sommelier certification!
You should check out DavidsTea
I assume you are joking right? Might as well buy Lipton in the store and pour some fake flavouring over it.. LOL!
Wonder if it will work this time... David's Tea is sawdust in a bag... might as well just buy lipton in the store and add some fake flavoring..... BLEH!
I recently bought from Quintins tea Emporium in Virginia and was quite impressed. Prices were very reasonable and they even threw in two samples that I got to try. I’m not the biggest fan but my wife loved their Creamy Earl Grey.
This was such a useful list! Thanks for sharing. Love Indian teas by Teatulia organic teas!
Good to know this list is helpful!
You might want to research Tin Roof Teas in Raleigh, NC. They have been in business for almost 10 years and they are styled after the European tea shops. No cupcakes, tiny sandwiches, just tea, accessories, and honey. Most of their teas are organic and fresh with many that are only weeks old. I have been shopping with them since they opened and they started with 150 teas and today they custom blend and sell over 300. It is a destination where people spend hours...strong internet presence. Sometimes I can't get to Raleigh so I have them ship.
Have you tried Mansa Tea? Their stuff is pretty amazing you should definitely check out some of their Pu'ers. I tried one them in the amber collection they had and WOW I was so impressed. Thanks for the article!!
Thank you for the article, was useful. For European readers, tea drinkers I would recommend Zhao Zhou tea in Budapest. Great sheng puer selection, also other goodies from China, Nepal, Taiwan and Japan. Best regards
not sure if you have come across http://www.teacupsfull.com they are a tea boutique which is run by tea planters who have worked in Badamtam Tea Estate, Thurbo Tea Estate, Barnesbeg Tea Estate, Castleton Tea Estate. To sum it up they have spent a lifetime in tea and it is not a commercial brand.
I always enjoy discovering new tea shops. Thanks for sharing!
PuerhShop.com is my go-to for puerhs. Very good selection at great prices.
Thanks for sharing Jenna.
The Tea Time Shop. I am in love with their loose leaf tea and they always offer free accessories during their promotions. Their customer service is fantastic as well as their packaging. My tea always arrives beautifully packaged and with a free sample included. I've ordered new teas I never would have tried just because of the samples I've received. I just found out it is owned and operated by women! Power to the ladies for a wonderful, inexpensive and delicious selection of tea.
These are really the best online tea shops which have an incredible source of tea collections. Very nice article. You can also try out healthy loose-leaf teas from Healthzarp online tea shop from the USA, which has been specially made with 100% pure natural blended ingredients. You need to try Healthzarp tea collections once for all your health problems. Get one Now!
Hi Mary Ann,
Great overview. Some of these inspired us to make our own shop.
Best wishes!
Thank you. Best wishes for success in your tea shop!
Harney & Sons gets my vote. They have a huge selection of excellent teas at reasonable prices and their customer service is great.
Agreed! Harney & Sons have some excellent teas at reasonable prices. I see they now have international shipping as well. Thanks!
I'm in love with Harney & Sons "Paris", "Victorian London Fog" and "Earl Grey Supreme."
**Bonus: The ingredients in Harney's Victorian London Fog tea make for a most SMASHING London Fog Latte. (Black tea, lavender buds, bergamot, vanilla. Add the milk and you're ready to go!)
I have to agree. The Harney & Sons Victorian London Fog is a favorite of mine too!
I have been buying from Rishi Tea for some time and feel so connected with there products. Am I missing something? Can I get the same selections and quality elsewhere for less expensive? Thank, I am enjoying your site.
Rishi Tea offers excellent products. I’ve recommended them in some of my other posts. Most recently the Best Gifts for Tea Lovers Guide. Since I have readers from around the world I only included tea companies with international shipping in this post. I just checked Rishi’s website and I see now they have a special form to fill out for international shipping. I’m glad you are enjoying my website.
Hey
Great Article you've written
This article has a lot of ideas for corporate gifting.
Yes, it would!