Tealish

The best way to approach tea at Queen West’s Tealish Fine Teas is with the palate of a two year old — specifically, the adventurous palate of owner Laura Chodola’s son: “He tastes all the teas! He loves coming to the store to try the different blends and smell them. Even the spicy ones.”

You’ll want to smell and taste them all too. Behind the counter of this fresh, bright store, you’ll find an array of tins containing tea alchemists’ concoctions: Sweet Macaron (a green dessert tea), Pomegranate Goji (green tea), or — for adults among us — the Hangover Helper (rooibos, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and more). The girls behind the counter will happily let you take a whiff of the colorful, aromatic loose teas.

There are dozens of blends, and the tins are colour-coded so you know whether you’re looking at green, black, white, rooibos, oolong or a caffeine-free herbal tea. For the purists, there is also a wall of estate teas — unflavoured varieties carefully selected by Laura and her husband, Tealish co-founder Michael Rachmel. “Tea is like wine in a way,” says Laura. “It has nuances that vary from year to year.”