TORONTO, Ont.
Dan Johanis has built the perfect place for busy downtown office workers seeking a daily retreat.
Herbal Infusions Premium Tea Co. is just a sliver of a storefront but spacious enough to house more than a 100 inviting teas and friendly enough to be a gathering place for the creative set that works in the King West neighborhood of Toronto’s fashion district.
“It’s become a retail space with a great connection to the city,” said Johanis, who founded the tea company in 2009. The 420 sq. ft. shop attracts 60 to 70 people a day, “bartenders, movie actors, animators… everyone wants to get away for a cup of tea,” he said.
Johanis offers green tea, black tea, oolong tea, white tea, and naturally decaffeinated loose leaf teas but where he excels is loose leaf herbal tisanes (herbal infusions) for which the shop is named.
Tea lovers and those looking for beverages that are refreshing and good for you will find blends like Eucalyptus Grapefruit, Campfire and Snow Love and Ontario Ice Wine. He offers a line of Organic Cacao Tea made from the hulls of the plant and Lomi-Lomi, a Hawaiian inspired blend of aloe vera and pineapple with stinging nettle and strawberry leaves, banana pieces and hibiscus, papaya, rose petals and mallow blossoms.
“Workers seeking a boost can choose from energizing teas that we like to coin “halfway house teas” – teas that are either infused with coffee beans or that naturally provide an energy boost without the caffeine crash (think Yerba Mate),” said Johanis.
His winter list is impressive with many creative and healthful blends.
The shop gets good reviews and was named one of the best boutiques in the city by Where Canada.
The BlogTO (Toronto) also named Herbal Infusions one of the Top 10 tea shops in Toronto.
Johanis, 32, worked in investment banking and financial planning and was immersed in Karate when he discovered tea culture. He decided to leave the high-pressure fast track for something more satisfying and simpler. Today he takes his inspiration from books like The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet by Robb Wolf.
Weekday streets are bustling with drop-ins who get a t-sac and cup to go. A steeped tea sells for $2.25 and tea lattes (cold or hot) are $3.95. On this day he is featuring Mayan Drinking Chocolate for $1.95. One middle-aged couple checks out the tea wall and asks for a favorite the husband mentions that “we have a cupboard filled with tea and we still keep coming back for more.”
A few regulars who sit in the store’s five-sea
tea bar watching the world go by. In the evening after the workday ends the clientele changes as the night club and bar scene comes alive. “The neighborhood is like a whole different world,” he observes. The shop remains open until 7:30 p.m.
Long hours for a one-man operation but he said the social interaction is satisfying and Johanis is industrious, managing other ventures on the side.
On the thing he and his clients can count on: “whenever I have a bad day I find something in the cup to feel better,” he said.
Herbal Infusions Premium Tea Co. is just a sliver of a storefront but spacious enough to house more than a 100 inviting teas and friendly enough to be a gathering place for the creative set that works in the King West neighborhood of Toronto’s fashion district.
“It’s become a retail space with a great connection to the city,” said Johanis, who founded the tea company in 2009. The 420 sq. ft. shop attracts 60 to 70 people a day, “bartenders, movie actors, animators… everyone wants to get away for a cup of tea,” he said.
Johanis offers green tea, black tea, oolong tea, white tea, and naturally decaffeinated loose leaf teas but where he excels is loose leaf herbal tisanes (herbal infusions) for which the shop is named.
Tea lovers and those looking for beverages that are refreshing and good for you will find blends like Eucalyptus Grapefruit, Campfire and Snow Love and Ontario Ice Wine. He offers a line of Organic Cacao Tea made from the hulls of the plant and Lomi-Lomi, a Hawaiian inspired blend of aloe vera and pineapple with stinging nettle and strawberry leaves, banana pieces and hibiscus, papaya, rose petals and mallow blossoms.
“Workers seeking a boost can choose from energizing teas that we like to coin “halfway house teas” – teas that are either infused with coffee beans or that naturally provide an energy boost without the caffeine crash (think Yerba Mate),” said Johanis.
His winter list is impressive with many creative and healthful blends.
The shop gets good reviews and was named one of the best boutiques in the city by Where Canada.
The BlogTO (Toronto) also named Herbal Infusions one of the Top 10 tea shops in Toronto.
Johanis, 32, worked in investment banking and financial planning and was immersed in Karate when he discovered tea culture. He decided to leave the high-pressure fast track for something more satisfying and simpler. Today he takes his inspiration from books like The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet by Robb Wolf.
Weekday streets are bustling with drop-ins who get a t-sac and cup to go. A steeped tea sells for $2.25 and tea lattes (cold or hot) are $3.95. On this day he is featuring Mayan Drinking Chocolate for $1.95. One middle-aged couple checks out the tea wall and asks for a favorite the husband mentions that “we have a cupboard filled with tea and we still keep coming back for more.”
A few regulars who sit in the store’s five-sea
tea bar watching the world go by. In the evening after the workday ends the clientele changes as the night club and bar scene comes alive. “The neighborhood is like a whole different world,” he observes. The shop remains open until 7:30 p.m.
Long hours for a one-man operation but he said the social interaction is satisfying and Johanis is industrious, managing other ventures on the side.
On the thing he and his clients can count on: “whenever I have a bad day I find something in the cup to feel better,” he said.