Tao Tea Leaf - Downtown Toronto

Recently visited the Yonge street store and was amazed with the variety of tea in the store. The staff was very friendly and suggested different flavours. I got a beautiful Kyusu , just as I wanted. Very happy with my purchase.

So in love with the Milk Oolong! They have a fantastic variety of tea and it's a pleasure to have such a great vendor and owner. Enjoy your tea!

I found this tea shop a couple of years ago, after searching for a rare pu’erh tea that I had, while I was is China. I just restocked on that tea, and was given a sample of choice upon pick up. I chose Silver Needle Old bush, and my gosh... this is the most impressive tea I’ve experienced drinking. I like it even more than the rare pu’erh that I just stocked up on.The Silver Needle has an amazing taste that becomes more pronounce, the cooler it gets.It’s smooth, yet tangy, subtle, yet bold, floral, yet nutty, all wrapped up into one, and I feel so classy, and relaxed as I drink this.Thank you! I will definitely be back for more Silver Needle. There are many teas here that you just can’t find elsewhere. I’m in love!#tea #teashop #chinesetea #whitetea

Excellent customer service - love that Gino spent time showing us so many different teas, even though he knew we were just here for two cups. The attention to detail and kind conversation was everything. Not to mention, best cup of tea I’ve ever had. We will be back again!

Recently got into tea. The staff at TAO are extremely friendly and knowledgeable. What I love is you can buy sampler sizes for their teas for $2.50 each. I bought a few different TAO teas to try.After being utterly dissatisfied with David's tea, due to lack of flavour, TAO tea, at least so far, the Jasmine Pearl tea, is the BEST tea I've had. Ever!I was also desperately looking for a simple Chinese style tea cup, particularly in white, since Chinatown doesn't have amazing selection. I love you can see the tea inside the cup since it's white inside. The simplicity of their tea cup is another big plus in my opinion.The only downside so far, and I am new to tea so I could be totally wrong, but the price seems a tad high for the tea, even though Jasmine Dragon Pearl's is one of their premium teas.The quality is definitely there, however, for me, TAO tea is going to be a once and a while treat.I will say TAO tea is the only tea I have had that tastes just as good with tap water or a higher end water and even using tap water for a 2nd steep the tea was never bitter and remained smooth, which is quite impressive!!If you want quality tea and don't mind spending roughly $42 for 100 grams of tea, (Jasmine Pearl's), then this is the place to go!

This tea shop is highly rated and I pass by Union all the time, so I decided to try it. I recently finished off some cream of earl grey loose leaf tea I got as a gift (from another supplier) and really liked it, so I bought some here. It was almost twice the price, and the tea was very disappointing. Either it's the variety of black tea or the bergamot flavouring, but I found it bitter and unpleasant (even when made following instructions exactly on the box). There is no cream flavour at all, it tastes like weak black tea with an overpowering bitter orange rind taste/aftertaste. I should have tried a sample of the tea before getting a 55 g box for $18 - lesson learned!

This is the best place to go if you want high quality Chinese and Taiwanese teas in Toronto. I'm regularly given samples to try, and am always met with patience when deciding which teas to buy.

Edit: TTL did refund as mentioned in the reply to this review, So I added another star :) …The package reads that the ingredients are stalks and stems, but there are lots of green tea leaves too (see photos).In store it was hard to tell if the darker green parts were leaves or stems. Leaves = too much caffeine for me. I tried email twice to get a refund since it was Tao’s mistake on the packaging; no answer.Friendly in store staff though, so two stars rather than one.

Tao Tea leaf is a place I would recommend for everyone to go to if they are tea lovers. They have such exciting flavours to offer. Even the customer service is amazing. I placed my order online and when my order arrived, it was the wrong order. I sent an email to Ginno who works at Tao Tea Leaf with pictures of the tea I had received. The response was prompt and he asked me to keep that entire (wrong)order as a gift and has promptly shipped my order out. I have also spoken with Ginno. He is very warm and friendly. They have earned a loyal customer in me and I am going to be ordering many more flavours of tea from this shop.

I have been a loyal customer for over 3 years now. I can't say that I agree with some of the negative reviews of their tea being 'overpriced' - you get what you pay for. While I do not consider myself an 'expert', I can say that out of over 15 different teas I've tried from Tao, all have been either above average or outstanding.While it has been some time since I've visited their Yonge St location (pandemic), both times I have visited this location, I was helped by knowlegable, friendly and patient staff.My standout favourite would be the Phoneix Dan Cong (almond) - buttery smooth with a vegetal finish and with NO trace of overt bitterness or harshness typically assoicated with cheaper oolong teas.Keep up the good work!