How do you take yours? Picked from the mountains of south-west China? Sweet, spicy and redolent of the bustling streets of Mumbai? Served with a scone and a finger sandwich? If you’re reading this, we’re tipping you fancy a fancier cuppa.

Here’s the tea on Sydney’s best places to drink tea. It’s part of Good Food’s Essential Sydney Cafes and Bakeries of 2025. Presented by T2, the guide celebrates the people and places that shape our cafe and bakery scenes and includes more than 100 venues reviewed anonymously across 11 categories, including icons, those best for food, tea, coffee and matcha, and where to get the city’s best sweets, sandwiches and baked goods. (These reviews also live on theGood Food app, and are discoverable on the map.)

Altitude Tea

There’s a warehouse in Alexandria where, every Sunday, people gather for a 21-step ritual tea ceremony in a shoebox-sized room of serenity. Owner Cara Chen is the gentle guide, taking them through a collection of rare teas, each grown at extreme altitude for enhanced sweetness, complexity and aroma. The line-up changes but can range from milky cups of prized Taiwanese oolong to fragrant bush blends with lemon myrtle and eucalyptus.

Best for: An ode to tea that’s part cultural exchange, part mindful meditation.

24 Bourke Road, Alexandria, altitudetea.com.au

Ambi Chai House

The star of this suburban hero is dynamic “Afro-Punjabi” chai, each made to order with whole spices in well-worn pots over individual flames. Tall glasses of tea – from the bold “Stuey’s Chilli Choc” with a spicy dark chocolate base, to the comforting sweet cardamom of the hug-like Amritsar – are served to barside regulars and transient visitors until 11pm.

Good to know: Ambi’s has now grown to four locations, including North Sydney, Kent Street and Kingston in the ACT.

5/366 Pennant Hills Road, Pennant Hills, ambischai.com.au

IndoChainese

Sydney’s first tandoori-made chai is creamy, fragrant and frothy as it’s poured into fire-roasted clay pots, which give it an earthier, smoky quality. The cardamom spiced tea is served in a streetside courtyard cafe in the heart of Harris Park. Get the full Indian breakfast experience by ordering it with ghee karam idly: light semolina cakes dusted with a chilli-cumin mix, perfect for dunking in coconut chutney and a tamarind sambar.

Best for: Tandoori chai and Indian-Chinese fusion feasting, late into the night.

46 Marion Street, Harris Park, indochaineseonline.com.au

Moment Tea

This sunlit corner cafe, hidden just off the Hume Highway, is a quiet two-storey haven of Scandi-minimalism, house-blended teas and creative tea-based concoctions. The menu is extensive, offering more than 50 teas spanning the traditional, contemporary and hard-to-find (including Wuyi Rock Wulong); served hot, cold, shaken, foamy or on the rocks. Try fun non-alc alternatives, such as the refreshing “Long Island Earl Grey” and malty-sweet honeyblossom tea “beer”.

Good to know: Moment Tea offers casual tea ceremonies, and a selection of tea-infused desserts.

1 Markham Place, Ashfield, moment-tea.com

Ms. Cattea Tea Bar

The steam from your freshly brewed cup of tea curls upward through the soft afternoon light as staff lead you through Ms. Cattea’s 100-strong menu of premium and rare blends. Try small-batch chai, slow-cooked for two hours with ginger, brown sugar and honey; or the Monkey King’s Pick, a rare green tea with orchid notes. The latter is served as part of the “adventurous range”, showcasing high altitude teas grown across the world.

Good to know: Book ahead for wontons and tea cocktails on Fridays and Saturdays.

17/1–21 Darlinghurst Road, Potts Point, mscattea.com.au

My Teahouse Sydney

With copper tea pots in the street-front window and a spacious back room for private pouring sessions, this tea shop-slash-museum is paradise for lovers of Chinese tea and the Gongfu tradition. A 40-page guide to green, white, oolong, red and fermented tea – plus “others” – lives on the counter, behind which cardboard boxes of meticulous sourced leaves and pucks of pu-erh tea are Tetrised to the ceiling.

Good to know: Gongfu tea ceremonies must be booked in advance.

129-133 Military Road, Neutral Bay, myteahouse.com.au

The Tea Room QVB

A Queen Victoria Building staple since 1997, this old-school venue is typically a symphony of clinking silver spoons on Royal Albert Old Country Rose china and the hushed murmurs of well-tended patrons. Tea by Germany’s Ronnefeldt brews in silverware pots, the delicate peach oolong, earthy Orange Pekoe or fittingly regal Lady Grey a prime pairing for scones as big as your fist.

Best for: Traditional and sparkling high teas that take you back in time.

Level 3, 455 George Street, Sydney, thetearoom.com.au

Tea Journal

This blink-and-you-miss-it tea cafe is hidden behind the main concourse of Chatswood Station. Follow the hip, laptop-toting chatterbugs towards the shelves of Chinese tea paraphernalia and the cabinet filled with flower-topped chiffon cakes in shades of black sesame, matcha and taro. Vibrant oolong is served with three steeping vessels that mirror the traditional gaiwan experience, and houjicha lattes are light, grassy and complex.

Must order: Milky oolong or the fresh, vibrant jade.

44/436 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, teajournal.com.au

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The Tea Cosy

A nostalgic nod to owner Ash Kinchin’s Irish nana, complete with scones, floral china and crocheted cosies inside an 1870s heritage building. Loose-leaf teas range from Irish breakfast to creme brulee, prosecco and fancy coffees add variety, and, best of all, there are buttery-soft scones house-baked throughout the day.

Must order: Tea, currant scones and triple-berry jam

7 Atherden Street, The Rocks, theteacosy.com.au

Zensation Tea House

When Chinese scholar Lu Yu described tea as “the sweetest dew of heaven”, he could well have been referring to the chrysanthemum brew at Zensation Tea House. Part kitschy tea shop, part yum cha restaurant, this inner-city sanctuary invites tea drinkers to explore infusions by scent before settling on a drink. Each tea is served in a unique vessel, prepared and presented by a member of the Leung family, with ceremonial care.

Good to know: Owner Raymond Leung hosts regular tea appreciation classes, available for groups or one-on-one

88 Bourke Street, Waterloo, zensation.com.au

Good Food’s Essential Sydney Cafes and Bakeries of 2025, presented by T2, celebrates the people and places that shape our excellent cafe and bakery scenes and includes more than 100 venues reviewed anonymously across 11 categories, including icons, those best for food, tea, coffee and matcha, and where to get the city’s best sweets, sandwiches and baked goods. Download the Good Food app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store to discover what’s near you.