Tea is served sitting down. Here is where to sit.
Which Kyoto ceremony hands you the whisk. What a working factory above Nuwara Eliya costs. Whether the Routemaster tea is worth eighty dollars. Reviews of the tea experiences you can book, country by country.
Kyoto, London, Nuwara Eliya, Uji: four sittings that explain the rest.
A ceremony, an afternoon tea, a working factory and a grinding stone. What each costs, and why it is the one to take first.
01The Kyoto oneKyoto: Tea Ceremony in a Traditional Tea House in KiyomizuA real tea house under Kiyomizu. You are shown the fold, the turn and the three sips, then you whisk a second bowl yourself.
02Tea on the waterLondon: Afternoon Tea Cruise on the River ThamesTwo hours down the Thames with the tiered stand in front of you. Westminster goes past somewhere between the scones and the cake.
03The hill countryNuwara Eliya: Tea Factory and Pickle Waterfalls Tuk Tuk TourA working factory above Nuwara Eliya, then the tea road back down past the pickers. The cup makes sense afterwards.
04Where matcha startsKyoto: Tea Museum Tickets and Matcha Grinding ExperienceUji, the town the powder comes from. Twenty minutes turning a granite mill produces roughly one bowl, which is the whole lesson.
The tea sittings more travellers take than any others.
Every tea experience we have reviewed →Kyoto tea houses, a London bus, a Dublin vintage coach and a factory in Ella. What each costs, and what keeps them selling.
1
Kyoto: Tea Ceremony in a Traditional Tea House in Kiyomizu
In Sannenzaka near Kiyomizu-Dera, an English-speaking host introduces you to 500 years of tea tradition before a tea master performs the ceremony. You then whisk your own matcha, enjoy a Japanese sweet, and pose for a garden photo. The 45-minute session costs $49, uses small groups, and does not include kimono rental.
From · $49
Read our review →
2
London: Afternoon Tea Cruise on the River Thames
from $53
3
Kyoto: Tea Ceremony Ju-An at Jotokuji Temple
from $29
4
Afternoon Tea Bus Tour in Dublin
from $72
5
Kyoto: 45-Minute Tea Ceremony Lesson Experience
from $22
6
London: Afternoon Tea Bus Tour – 1960s Routemaster Bus
from $87
7
London: Afternoon Tea Bus with a Glass of Prosecco
from $64
8
Dublin: Afternoon Tea Vintage Bus Tour
from $65
Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka: three cities, three ways to be served.
Japan holds more of these than anywhere else, and the three cities are not interchangeable. What a sitting costs in each, and what you get for the money.
Japan, Britain, Sri Lanka, China, India, Morocco: six ways to be handed a cup.
A tatami room in Kyoto, a tiered stand in London, a factory floor above Nuwara Eliya, a West Lake terrace, the Munnar hills and a Marrakech rooftop. Six places to start, and the best sitting in each.
Kyoto: book the room before you book anything else.
Everything in Kyoto →
Tea sittings run all over the city on any given day, from a twenty-dollar lesson near Gion to a private hour with a master in a machiya townhouse. These three fill first.
A tea house under Kiyomizu
You sit on tatami, you are shown the fold, the turn and the three sips, and then you make a second bowl yourself. Kimono optional, and usually worth it.
Uji, where the powder comes from
Twenty minutes of grinding produces about one bowl, which is the entire lesson. The museum next door explains why one tin costs four dollars and the next forty.
Kimono first, ceremony after
Dressing takes longer than the ceremony does. Go early, keep the kimono on for the walk through Gion afterwards, and take the slot before the afternoon light goes.
The bowl, the whisk, and the forty minutes around them.
From a fifteen-minute lesson beside a temple gate to a private hour with a master in a samurai house. These three carry the most travellers of anything on the site.
What a tea sitting actually costs, country by country.
Every experience on the site, grouped by price. A Kyoto ceremony costs less than a London taxi; a hill-country factory day costs less again.
Ceremony lessons in Kyoto and Osaka, hill-country factory tours, tastings and a mint pot on a Marrakech rooftop.
Afternoon tea on a bus or a boat, kimono mornings, and the full-day plantation runs that include the drive.
Private tea masters, palace high teas, and the whole-day trips that collect you and bring you back.
Three tea rituals that exist in exactly one place.
Anyone can put leaves in hot water. Grinding your own matcha in Uji, being dressed in a kimono before you are handed the bowl, and pouring Earl Grey on the top deck of a moving Routemaster do not travel.
Dressed for the Bowl
The machiya houses put you in a kimono first, which takes about forty minutes and changes how you sit for the rest of it. The ceremony afterwards runs at half the speed you expect, and that is the content: the folding of the cloth, the turning of the bowl, the silence between them. The drink itself takes three sips.
- 1Kimono Tea Ceremony at Kyoto Maikoya, NISHIKI★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 911 reviews
- 2Kimono Tea Ceremony at Tokyo, Asakusa Maikoya★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 638 reviews
- 3Kyoto: Kimono Tea Ceremony at Orizuruya Gion★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 618 reviews
Tea at Fifteen Miles an Hour
Somebody fitted a 1960s Routemaster with tables and a tiered stand, and now there are several, looping past Westminster and St Paul’s while you pour. The scones survive the corners. Ask for the top deck at the front, sit facing forward, and expect the driver to stop for lights mid-sentence.
- 1Afternoon Tea Bus Tour in Dublin★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,791 reviews
- 2London: Afternoon Tea Bus Tour – 1960s Routemaster Bus★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,032 reviews
- 3London: Afternoon Tea Bus with a Glass of Prosecco★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 1,853 reviews
The Stone and the Roller
A granite mill turns out roughly one bowl of matcha for twenty minutes of your own grinding. A Sri Lankan roller built in the 1930s does several tonnes a day and is still running. Stand next to both and the price of a tin stops being mysterious.
- 1Kyoto: Tea Museum Tickets and Matcha Grinding Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 739 reviews
- 2Uva Halpewatte Tea Factory Tour in Ella Sri Lanka★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 653 reviews
- 3Nuwara Eliya: Tea Factory and Pickle Waterfalls Tuk Tuk Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 113 reviews
Four tea bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this can be arranged the night before. These four run on small rooms, dressing appointments and factory shifts that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Kyoto: Tea Ceremony Ju-An at Jotokuji TempleA temple room holds a handful of people at a time and the morning slots go first. There is no standing at the back of a tea room.
- 02Kimono Tea Ceremony at Kyoto Maikoya, NISHIKIKimono dressing is sold by the appointment, and the good ones go weeks out. Arrive without a booking and you are drinking in your coat.
- 03London: Afternoon Tea Bus Tour – 1960s Routemaster BusOne bus, fixed departures, tables sold by the seat. Weekend runs go weeks ahead and there is no second deck to squeeze onto.
- 04Uva Halpewatte Tea Factory Tour in Ella Sri LankaA factory runs to a shift, not to a visitor timetable. Turn up after the day’s rolling stops and you are looking at cold machinery.
Tatami, socks, and forty minutes of sitting still.
A ceremony is not a tasting. Shoes come off, you are on the floor in a small room for about the length of a film reel, and photography is allowed in some rooms and not in others. If that is not the afternoon you want, the same countries will happily sell you a table, a stand and a pot instead.
In London the tea arrives with a bus, a boat or a palace attached.
Afternoon tea here stopped being one thing decades ago. There is a 1960s Routemaster doing circuits past Westminster, a Thames cruise with the stand on the table, a Twinings masterclass on the Strand and a Kensington garden with proper china.
Every British sitting →
Sri Lanka sells the whole chain: bush, factory, cup.
The hill country between Kandy and Ella is one long estate. You can watch plucking, follow the leaf through withering and rolling, and drink the result on a veranda, all inside an afternoon and for less than a London stand costs.
- 1Uva Halpewatte Tea Factory Tour in Ella Sri Lankafrom $18
- 2Tea Plantation Tour in Ella, Sri Lankafrom $25
- 3Nuwara Eliya: Tea Factory and Pickle Waterfalls Tuk Tuk Tourfrom $33
Tea grows on a hillside in Munnar, Uji and Nuwara Eliya. Go and stand in one.
Plucking at shoulder height, withering lofts that smell like cut hay, a roller from the 1930s still turning. A plantation and factory day costs less than a city walking tour and explains more than either.
Kyoto to London: the tea trail, in the order it makes sense.
LondonNewest first: the tea sittings just reviewed.
Keep going back through them →
Yokohama: Sushi & Gyoza Cooking with Matcha Experience
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Matcha tasting for all five senses at Hotel Yokohama
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Japanese Sweets Making & Tea Ceremony in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo
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High Tea in the Savannah, Catering by Victoria Falls Hotel
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Xi’an Chinese Calligraphy Workshop: Ink Art & Tea Tasting
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Whisk Your Own Matcha: A Zen Matcha Experience at Temple
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Half-day Tour: Largest Tea Plantation & Amazing Xianggong Hill
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Xi’an Calligraphy & Tea Ceremony – Dive into Ink & Brush Artistry
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Slow Cycling Tour at Uji’s Matcha Green Tea Fields and Heritage
Read our review →