AviaryBook a tableTable
A hand pouring steaming water from a dark clay kettle into small cups
0:00
Water · 80 °C
first infusion · twenty seconds

Leaves, water, time.

Fourteen teas. Four infusions of each. Nothing in a bag.A tea house that treats the leaf like a wine list and the water like an ingredient. You'll be here an hour. The same leaves will be poured four times, and the fourth is the one people remember.

Book a table
01 · Four infusions

Same leaves, four times.

1 of 4
infusion · the leaves open with each
I
II
III
IV
First20 s · pale · waking
Second25 s · the one
Third35 s · deeper
Fourth60 s · sweet, quiet
The first is a rinse, and a hello.Twenty seconds. Pale, grassy, mostly about waking the leaf up. Some houses throw it away. We don't; it's the only one that tastes of the leaf dry.
A row of white tasting cups filled with pale gold tea on a wooden counter
02 · The house

What's on the counter.

14

teas. Four green, three oolong, three black, two white, two aged. Nothing flavoured.

4

infusions of each, at the table, timed by the person pouring. Not by you.

80–95 °

water, to the tea. Green at eighty. Black at ninety-five. A kettle for each.

0

bags, syrups, milk, or takeaway cups. You sit. That's the tea house.

Twisted dried green tea leaves close up

Leaves, water, time. In that order.

Bad leaves can't be fixed by water. Good leaves can be ruined by it. And the best of both are wasted if you don't wait. The order matters, and it's the name of the place.

Teas

Three from the fourteen.

The full list is on the wall and changes with the harvest. These three are on every day, because people ask.

Green · spring pick · 80 °CDragon WellFlat, pan-fired, chestnut and cut grass

The first infusion is barely tea. The second is the reason people come back on a Tuesday.

£9 · four infusions
Oolong · rolled · 90 °CIron GoddessTight green balls that open over four pours

Orchid on the first, cream on the third. The leaves unfurl to four times their size. Watch the pot.

£11 · four infusions
Aged · pressed · 95 °CTwelve-year Pu-erhEarth, dried fruit, a cellar in a good way

Rinsed once, then four pours that get sweeter as they go. The tea people are afraid of, and shouldn't be.

£14 · four infusions
The house

How the hour goes.

You sit, someone pours, you wait. Here's what happens between.

A small clay teapot beside two glass cups of amber tea
00:00
Sit, choose, or don'tFourteen on the wall. Say what you like, or say nothing and get what the pourer's drinking.
00:04
The kettle for that teaEighty for green, ninety-five for black. There are four kettles. It isn't fussy, it's chemistry.
00:06
First pour, twenty secondsPale. Smell it more than drink it. The leaf is waking up.
00:20
Second, thirdThe ones the tea was picked for. Nobody talks much during the second. That's normal.
00:50
Fourth, a minuteSweet, quiet, thin. The end of the leaf. People stay for another twenty minutes after this one, and we let them.
Tables

Book a table.

Twelve tables, an hour each, from ten until six. Say how many and whether anyone's new to it. We'll seat the new ones nearest the counter, where the pouring happens.

Book a table