London’s Amanzi Tea

You all know I love tea, but I recently realized that I never really talk about it here, even though it’s one of the main reasons why I started this blog. I guess it’s because I’m not good at describing flavor notes; I can just tell you if it is really tasty, just blah, or to stay the heck away from it. I feel like a fraud saying it has “a subtle hint of (fill in the blank)” if I can’t taste it. The same goes for chocolate and wine. I know what I like but I have a really hard time describing what exactly about it I like. I plan to learn, but until I start learning, I’m not going to blab like a connoisseur when I’m not. So here I’m admitting that I’m no tea connoisseur, just a tea lover that wants to tell you about what I love. 

What I love is loose leaf tea. I don’t discriminate against teabags in any way, but the flavor of loose leaf tea is so much better. It doesn’t have the bitterness that you get if you steep a teabag too long. I also love drinking hot tea, iced tea, tea lattes, and bubble tea drinks anytime of the day. I am always so jealous of coffee lovers that can go to any coffee shop or restaurant, anytime, anywhere and order a nice cup of drip coffee (I know they are not all nice, but at least there are options). With tea, it is a rare occasion you will get the option of loose leaf tea in a coffee shop. You will 90% of the time get 3-5 options of teabags and it’s usually Lipton (fine in a pinch, but not if you want a nice cup of tea!). Coffee drinkers…think of it like going to a coffee shop and them giving you a cup of instant coffee. You’d be a bit disappointed, right? I thought so. 

The point I’m getting at is that I found a tea lovers heaven and I want to tell the world about it! They sold loose leaf tea drinks in the same manner that Starbucks sells coffee drinks. There were lots of options! A whole wall of them! They add steamed milk if you want! You can add bubbles to your tea! You can make any tea you want iced! With our without sugar! You can take it in a mug and sit down, or a paper cup to go! Ok, I’ll stop the exclamation points, but you get my point. Can you guess where in the world this amazing tea shop is? (Ya, you probably already know from the title. But I’ll pretend otherwise). The tea capital of the world! London.  

I went to London to visit my aunt who is working there part time. We went to Amanzi Tea everyday of my four day trip. It is perfectly located on a side street of Marylebone High Street, which is a great area for eating, drinking, shopping, you name it. We were enthralled with how they prepared the tea. They steeped the leaves in this plastic container (minor negative for plastic) and they set a timer for each tea. Once the timer went off, they put the container on top of the cup, and the pressure of the rim of the cup would release the tea into the cup, leaving the leaves behind in the steeper. 

We tried peach and cherry iced teas, green tea, chai tea, chai tea latte, green bubble tea, and breakfast tea. My favorite were the iced teas, but I was rather disappointed in the chai latte. I dream about good chai lattes, and I was shocked to find out they use a powdered mix. I’m particular (or some may say snobby) about my chai lattes and always ask if they use powdered mix or if it’s oregon chai brand. If it’s either of those I won’t bother, because I know I’ll throw it away. I didn’t even think to ask because after all, it was a tea store…in my mind the chai had to be good. They even had almond milk so I was ready for the best chai latte ever. When I got it and tasted it, I knew it was powdered. I brought it to her and told her my dilemma and she happily exchanged it for something I wanted without charge (good customer service! so refreshing coming from Zurich). 

All in all, Amanzi isn’t perfect, but the concept is. If I had the know how and resources, I would start a version of my own right this very second. It was always busy, during different times of the day, just like a Starbucks. I’m predicting (it’s written in Internet stone so I can be praised later) that this type of tea shop is going to spread all over and I can’t wait! Turns out they have already have a second store which just so happens to be in South Carolina. I find this so random, but I hope it’s doing well and will come to the West Coast soon. 

Are there more tea shops like this that I don’t know about? Please tell me if so.