Lady Bonins Tea Parlour

About Lady Bonins Tea Parlour

Remember Lady Bonin's Tea Caravan? The colourful vintage caravan (complete with wallpaper on the inside walls) used to serve tea at markets and events around Cape Town. Jessica Bonin's aim: to revolutionise the tea drinking culture (or non-existent tea culture) in the city.

It proved a great alternative to take-away coffee. Back then the focus was on quickly brewed take-away, high quality, loose-leaf teas, in biodegradable packaging.

The caravan was such a success that it morphed into a little tea parlour at the Woodstock Exchange. Now the tea parlour has moved into a space on Long Street, towards the top of the CBD. If the rave reviews are anything to go by, it's worth a visit.

The self-described bohemian-meets-industrial tea shop has been designed as a space for people to reconnect with themselves, and others, through the 'nurturing, comforting and age-old act of tea drinking'.

The perfect location includes a tiled passageway, and glass shelves down one side on which her packs of loose leaf blends stand in amongst tea pots and stoppered bottles.

Along the opposite wall runs a bar with a wooden counter and a large menu against patterned wallpaper, so that those queueing for take-aways can easily choose from amongst the delightfully mixed teas – cinnamon bun, Moulin Rouge, choc chilli chai, Matcha latte, Morocco choco minto latto, pumpkin chai, turmeric golden milk and so on...

The heady space is a dream escape for tea. And Jessica Bonin mixes these blends of tea, spices and flowers herself. The high quality herbal, black, green and other teas come from sustainable, community-driven farms here in South Africa, and in Japan.

Best of all, you can pick up a bag of loose leaf tea from the retail section to take home with you, so that you can brew your own cup at home.

The shop will soon include a traditional tea ceremony room. And the tea bar model may soon be available as a franchise model.