TEA TOURS · AROUND THE WORLD
From the leaf to the cup.
Matcha ceremonies in Kyoto, afternoon tea in London, mint tea over the souks of Marrakesh, estate trails in the hills of Munnar and Ceylon. Real reviews of the tea tours worth booking, wherever tea is taken seriously.
Worth a trip for the tea alone
Three places tea is more than a drink.
A pot of tea is easy to find anywhere. A four-hundred-year-old ceremony, a working estate in the clouds, a mint pour that doubles as a welcome are not. Kyoto, Munnar and Marrakesh each turn tea into the reason you came.
Japan
Kyoto
Nowhere takes tea more seriously. In a Gion machiya a master whisks matcha to a jade froth, and a host walks you through a chanoyu ceremony refined over four hundred years: kneel on the tatami, turn the bowl twice, drink in three sips. Some sittings come with a kimono, some with wagashi sweets, all with a stillness you do not get from a cup anywhere else.
- 1 Kyoto: Tea Ceremony in a Traditional Tea House in Kiyomizu
- 2 Kyoto: Tea Ceremony Ju-An at Jotokuji Temple
- 3 Kyoto: 45-Minute Tea Ceremony Lesson Experience
India
Munnar
The Western Ghats fold away in corduroy rows of tea, some of the highest-grown leaf on earth. A trail walks you through the estates and into a working factory, where the day pickings wither, roll, oxidise and fire into the black tea that built these hills. You taste it fresh off the line, then again over the valley, knowing exactly where it came from.
- 1 Munnar Tea Trail Tour with Factory Experience ( By Munnar Info)
- 2 Munnar Tea valley Tour ( By Munnar Info)
- 3 Munnar Tea Plantation Walk with Sunset View (By Munnar Info)
Morocco
Marrakesh
In Morocco the tea is the welcome, and it is half theatre. Gunpowder green steeped with a fistful of spearmint and far too much sugar, poured from on high to crown each glass with foam, the first glass always handed back to the pot. You drink it in a riad courtyard, a souk stall or out on the dunes at dusk, three rounds, never one.
- 1 Marrakech: Dunes of the Palmeraie Quad Bike Ride with Tea
- 2 Marrakech: Quad activity in the Palmeraie with Tea break
- 3 Around Marrakech: Camel Ride in Palm Groves including Tea
If you only book one
The tea tour more travellers love than any other.
Of every tea experience we cover, this is the one people come home recommending to anyone who will listen. A good place to start.
The crowd-pleasers
The Most Popular Tea Tours Right Now
Kyoto matcha ceremonies, London afternoon tea, Marrakesh mint pours, Munnar estate trails. The bookings travellers are happiest they made.
Start with a place
The best tea tours, place by place.
Kyoto for the ceremony, London for the afternoon ritual, Marrakesh for the mint pour, Munnar for the estate trail. Pick where you are headed and we will show you the tea tours worth booking there.
The three great traditions
Three ways the world takes its tea.
The same leaf, three utterly different rituals. Start with the one that pulls at you: the quiet of a Japanese ceremony, the sweet theatre of a Moroccan pour, or the hill-country estate where it all begins.
Kyoto
Tea, made into an art.
In a Gion machiya the host kneels, whisks the matcha to a bright jade froth and sets the bowl before you with both hands. You turn it twice and drink in three sips. A chanoyu ceremony is slow on purpose, four hundred years of refinement in a single quiet cup, and the best way a first-timer can step inside it.
See the best Kyoto tea tours →London
The afternoon tea ritual.
London made an institution of the afternoon pot: finger sandwiches and warm scones with clotted cream, a tiered stand of pastries, and tea that keeps coming. Take it in a grand hotel drawing room, in a Mayfair patisserie, or from the top deck of a vintage Routemaster bus winding past the landmarks. The most genteel tea hour anywhere.
See the best London tea tours →Marrakesh
The mint tea is the welcome.
Moroccan tea is half ritual, half show: gunpowder green steeped with a fistful of spearmint and a great deal of sugar, then poured from high above the glass to raise a head of foam, the first pour always returned to the pot. You take three rounds, never one, in a hidden riad courtyard, a rooftop above the souks, or out on the dunes as the light goes. A guide shows you where the real glasses are poured.
See the best Marrakesh tea tours →Tokyo
Matcha with a tea master.
Beyond the neon, Tokyo keeps the old ceremony alive in tucked-away tea rooms and temple halls. Sit with a tea master who walks you through the whisking and the etiquette, slip into a kimono if you like, and taste matcha and wagashi sweets the unhurried way, with every step explained in plain English.
- 1 Tokyo: Traditional Tea Ceremony with a Tea Master
- 2 Dynamic Tokyo: Tokyo Tower, Tea Experience, Bay Cruise Day Tour
- 3 Asakusa: Kimono Tea Ceremony with Matcha and Sweet
How deep do you want to go?
From an easy cup to the full ceremony.
A relaxed afternoon pot in London. A walk to the source on a Munnar estate. The full, formal way of tea in Kyoto. Pick the one that sounds like your kind of afternoon.
Ease in
London, the afternoon ritual.Tiered stands, warm scones and a pot that keeps coming, in a grand hotel drawing room or aboard a vintage Routemaster. The gentlest way in: just sit, pour and let the afternoon stretch.
Go to the source
Munnar, leaf to first cup.A walk through the rolling estates of the Western Ghats, then into a working factory to watch the green leaf wither, roll and fire. You taste it at the end, fresh off the line, with the hills laid out below.
The full ceremony
Kyoto, the way of tea.A tea master whisks matcha in a Gion machiya, every movement deliberate and centuries old. You kneel, receive the bowl, turn it twice and drink. Not a drink so much as a quiet, complete thing.
Nuwara Eliya
Where Ceylon tea grows.
High in Sri Lanka’s hill country, the slopes around Nuwara Eliya are stitched with tea, the cool air and altitude giving Ceylon its bright, brisk character. A tour takes you out to a working estate among the pickers, into a colonial-era factory to follow the leaf through withering, rolling and firing, then to the tasting table for a cup poured from the very batch you watched come off the line.
See all 10 Nuwara Eliya tea tours →By destination
Pick where you want to take your tea.
Kyoto for the ceremony. London for the afternoon stand. Marrakesh for the mint pour. Tokyo for the tea master. Nuwara Eliya for the Ceylon estates. Agadir for the Berber whisky.
More destinations
More places worth a pot of tea.
Osaka and Hiroshima for the Japanese ceremony, Dublin and Edinburgh for the afternoon stand, Tangier for the mint pour, Ella for the hill-country estates. The rest of the map, ready when you are.
Three places, three tea days
Pick a place, build the day around the pot.
A morning ceremony in Osaka, an estate afternoon in Ella, a sunset mint pour in Tangier. Three destinations, three completely different ways to spend a day with tea.
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