Zhi Tea
The teas are whole-leaf and traceable to the farm that picked them, and the Chronicle's reviewer says bagged tea stops working for you afterward.1
Why go
Jeffrey Lorien and Candice Oneida started it as an online tea business and have run a tasting room since 2008. Kate Thornberry reviewed it for the Chronicle in June 2012, and her verdict is the whole case: The teas available at Zhi are so pristine and clear and deeply flavorful that once you try them, it's difficult, if not impossible, to go back to supermarket tea bags.
1 The mechanism behind that is straightforward. Bagged tea is cut fine so it brews fast, which also means it dumps tannin and stales quickly; whole leaves brew slower, hold their aromatics and take several infusions, which is why a pot here is a different drink from a mug at home.
Order this / avoid
- Order: a pot rather than a cup, so you get the second and third infusions out of the leaf. The list ran close to a hundred varieties across black, green, white, oolong, herbal and rooibos as of the review.1
- Eat: the Taste of Texas platter if the food menu is still running, which as of 2012 was Pure Luck goat cheese, gluten-free crackers, tangerine, organic Texas pecans toasted in local honey and sunflower sprouts. The Aegean plate was hummus with Texas Hill Country Olive Company olives and Phoenicia pita, and the pastry came from Barrie Cullinan's Amity Bakery.1
- Avoid: expecting a coffeehouse. Thornberry describes a quiet, contemplative tearoom.
What locals & experts say
- The Austin Chronicle, Kate Thornberry (22 June 2012): she records how the food came about in Lorien's own words, that customers started asking for pairings while the business was tasting its teas alongside local products at food events. She also prints the price ladder: a cup hot or iced at $2.50, a 16-ounce pot at $3.50, a 24-ounce at $5.50 and a 45-ounce at $7.50. Those are 2012 numbers.1
- Her verdict on the tea itself:
The teas available at Zhi are so pristine and clear and deeply flavorful that once you try them, it's difficult, if not impossible, to go back to supermarket tea bags.
1
Good to know
- Where it is: 1023 Springdale Road, Suite A, in the Springdale General complex in East Austin, alongside Uroko, Julie Myrtille Bakery and Mam Mam. The 2012 review's header address is the older Bolm Road headquarters, so the business has moved since it was written.
- Hygiene: the cleanest record in this batch. Austin Public Health holds one business, scoring 97 on 19 August 2025, 96 on 23 August 2024 and 96 on 15 August 2023. Three inspections, one a year, all in the high nineties on a scale whose median sits near 90. If you look the address up yourself you will find fifteen businesses on it, because the whole complex shares it.2
Verdict
could-visit — Zhi Tea is a whole-leaf tea house in Springdale General, trading a tasting room since 2008 under Jeffrey Lorien and Candice Oneida. Kate Thornberry's Chronicle review is the argument: the teas are pristine and clear enough that supermarket bags stop working for you afterward. The list ran to close to a hundred varieties across black, green, white, oolong, herbal and rooibos. What makes it worth a stop over a cafe is the producer roster on the food, as of that review: Pure Luck goat cheese, Texas pecans toasted in local honey, olives from the Texas Hill Country Olive Company, pita from Phoenicia, preserves from New Canaan Farms. Two things to know: that review is from 2012, and the business has moved address since. It sits at could-visit because nothing current has assessed it.