Ezio Bonino’s passion for tea, especially Japanese tea, transpires in the precise style of his shop, a relaxing ambience lined with beautiful objects (cups and teapots, all on sale) where customers can not only make purchases but also treat themselves to a tasting ceremony (from 3pm to 6pm, best book in advance). Ezio, helped by his sisters Donata and Ombretta, is always on hand to offer advice, ever on the lookout for new products to talk about. “There are plenty of good teas around,” he likes to say, “they’re only waiting for someone to find them and make them known.” Among his latest discoveries are the green teas of the prefecture of Saitama, near Tokyo, not very well known even in Japan itself but increasingly popular. This is just one of a vast range of the teas on offer. One more curious example is smoked whisky wakoucha, a Japanese black tea whose leaves are delicately smoked over fires of old whisky barrels. The countless varieties on sale take in the whole vast geographical area in which Camellia sinensis, the tea plant, grows: hence China, Taiwan (and its much-loved wulongs), India, Sri Lanka, Korea, Vietnam, Laos and also Africa.
Closed on Sunday, Monday and holidays.
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