Japanese Tea in Tallinn: Where to Drink It and Where to Buy It
Tallinn has become a surprisingly good city for tea. Matcha is on café menus that had never heard of it five years ago, and you can buy Japanese green tea in most larger supermarkets. What is harder to find is somewhere to actually taste it properly before you commit to a bag.
That is more or less why we opened. This page covers where we are, what you can drink, and, more usefully, what to look for if you are buying Japanese tea anywhere in Tallinn.
Where to find us
Morii Teahouse, Kopli 16, Tallinn, in Kalamaja, a few minutes' walk from Balti jaam and the Telliskivi Creative City end of town.
Opening hours
Monday–Saturday 12:00–21:00
Sunday 12:00–20:00
Phone: +372 5833 6859
You do not need to book to drink tea. If you want to sit down with someone and go through several teas properly, message us first. It is easier when we know you are coming.
What you can drink here
Everything on the menu is made with the same tea we sell, which sounds obvious and mostly is not. Nothing is a different, cheaper grade for café use.
Ceremonial matcha, whisked the traditional way with water and nothing else. This is the one worth ordering if you have only ever had matcha as a latte. It tastes almost nothing like it.
Matcha lattes, hot or iced, with your choice of milk. Oat is our default because its sweetness balances matcha's slightly bitter green note.
Hojicha, roasted green tea: nutty, caramel-like and much lower in caffeine. This is what we hand people who say they do not like green tea. It changes minds fairly often.
Seasonal drinks that rotate through the year, usually built on whichever tea has just arrived from Kyoto.
You can also just buy the leaves and powder and take them home. Everything in the shop is from a single family farm in southern Kyoto, where tea has been grown for four generations. If you are not sure which leaf to pick, our guide Japanese green teas explained compares sencha, kabusecha, genmaicha, hojicha and matcha: how each is made, how it tastes and how to brew it.
Buying Japanese tea in Tallinn: what to actually check
This applies wherever you shop, including places that are not us. Four things separate good Japanese tea from expensive packaging.
The origin is named. Good matcha states a region: Uji, Nishio, Kagoshima. If the bag says only "Japan", or says nothing at all, you are being asked to trust the brand rather than the tea.
The harvest is stated. First spring harvest (ichibancha) is generally sweeter and softer. Later harvests are sharper and cheaper, which is fine for baking and less fine for drinking straight.
The colour is vivid. Fresh matcha is almost neon green. Yellowish or brownish usually means old powder or a late picking. You can often see this through the shop window.
The packaging is small and opaque. A large clear jar means the product is built to sit on a shelf. Matcha starts losing its character within about two months of opening, so a 100 g tub is often a worse deal than a 30 g one however the price per gram looks.
If you want the longer version of all of this, with grades, water temperature, storage and a latte recipe, we wrote a full guide to choosing, brewing and storing matcha powder. For a map of every kind of shop that sells matcha in the city, with verified prices, read our guide to matcha in Tallinn: where to buy it.
Come and taste before you buy
The honest reason to visit rather than order online is that the difference between a €7 bag and a €30 one is very hard to argue on a product page and very easy to settle in a cup. Order a ceremonial matcha, order whatever you normally drink, and see whether you can tell, and whether it is worth it to you.
If the answer is no, that is useful information and it costs you the price of one drink. If the answer is yes, you can take a bag home from the same room.
You can also browse the full range in matcha and powders or loose-leaf teas and have it delivered anywhere in Europe.