Hello, Tokyo!

Our Tasting Rooms aim to reflect a customer experience like what one might be accustomed to in a winery: an invitation to slow down, savor and consider the flavors and aromas in their cup, as well as their origins.

At our Tokyo Tasting Room, we’ll be slinging our signature teas, tea lattes and unique tea flight experiences  – just like the ones you know and love at our Portland, OR Teaworks.

To mimic the care for craft and quality that we take in curating tea experiences for our guests, our Tokyo Tasting Room is adorned with two custom chochin lanterns, handcrafted by Kojima Shoten in Kyoto, which has been making chochin lanterns by hand for over 200 years. The paper used for the lanterns was made by Nao Tesuki Washi Company using Smith Tea as a natural dye, and pressed tea leaves into the washi paper itself. Additionally, we partnered with Big Sand Woodworking to handcraft the boards for its tea flights and displays, and a local designer to craft sensory cloches.  

Tokyo Twilight, our exclusive blend created for our Tokyo Tasting Room, honors the liveliness of its city namesake while nodding to its cultural tradition of balance and meditation in its cohesion of ingredients. A thoughtful balance of caffeinated green tea and grounding elements of green rooibos, juniper berries, and lemon peel – it’s inspired by the tender moment between afternoon and evening in the bustling city it belongs to.

First Harvest Gyokuro is our first Teamaker’s Choice tea from Japan and one we’re incredibly fond of. Gyokuro is a uniquely rich, brothy tea that packs a punch of umami from the shade-grown process it undergoes before harvest. Because it comes from the very first plucking of the season, the leaves are bursting with tender, exquisite flavor that translates to the dried leaves in a stunning fashion. It can be steeped any number of ways and even eaten after steeping. My favorite is a cold infusion of the leaves that I enjoy in the hammock on warm days.

Garden Party is a wink and nod to the complexity of flavors found in Japanese ramen and other soup bases. We took the umami rich Gyokuro mentioned above and blended it with sage, hyssop, rosemary, lavender, and chamomile petals to bring to life a more savory tea experience. Still subtly sweet, this mosaic of flavors is one we can’t wait for you to try.