Newly open at Aberdeen Centre in Richmond is Spiritea, a modern tea house serving fruit and milk teas made with all-natural fruit, pastries and features an Instagram-worthy interior. Although this location is just freshly opened, plans for locations in New York and Irvine, CA are already in the works. I was invited a media tasting recently. Here’s a look at my experience.
Disclosure: I was invited for a media tasting where all food and drinks were complimentary.
Modern & Elegant Interior
Spiritea’s modern and elegant interior features plush velvet chairs, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a tall ceiling with overhanging lights. It seems like a very inviting and warm space for people to gather over drinks and desserts.
Teapresso Machine
What sets Spiritea apart from other tea shops is that they brew all of their teas on the spot in a special Teapresso machine. They use premium tea leaves, fresh fruit, Avalon Dairy organic milk and pure cane sugar made in France. Their focus is to provide the freshest and highest quality ingredients without the use of artificial fruit syrups or powders.
Spiritea Menu
Spritea’s drink menu is focused on fruit and milk teas made with all-natural fruit and not bubble teas. These include Cloudteas (which are salted cheese cap drinks), Lattea, Fruitea, PuriteaandGlacier Cold Brew.
Their Glacial Cold Brewed Tea involves soaking tea lives in low-temperature glacial water which will release tea tannins and caffeine. The result is a smooth taste and highly aromatic.
Their drinks are priced higher at $7 – $10 due to the use of premium ingredients (ie, real fruit, organic milk and pure cane sugar).
Spiritea’s Desserts
Spiritea also offers a small selection of desserts which are made by an external supplier. These include the Snowflake Cheesecake ($9), Chocolate Mousse ($9), Very Berry ($10) and Xmas Tree ($9). They also sell macarons in Salted Caramel, Earl Grey, Matcha and Lychee flavours ($2.75).
Chocolate Mousse
Xmas Tree
Snowflake Cheesecake
Very Berry
What I Tried
Hanson (noshandnibble.blog) and I tried a variety of drinks and pastries at the tasting.
We started off which a selection of Fruit Cloudteas including the Pineapple ($9), Strawberry ($9) and Very Berry ($10). The drinks feature real fruit mixed with tea and a salted cheese cap to intensify the flavours of the tea as it passed through the cheese cap layer. I found the Pineapple Cloudtea to be particularly refreshing with its tropical flavours.
We also tried the TanCho Black Tea ($7) which had a great milk and black tea flavour. Next was the Superfruit Combo Fruitea ($9) which had real grapefruit, orange and lime. This was also very refreshing and it felt like a healthy drink since it had a few different fruits.
We tried all their desserts: Very Berry ($10), Snowflake Cheesecake ($9), Chocolate Mousse ($9) and Xmas Tree ($9). I liked their presentation and they tasted fine for externally supplied pastries. However, they did seem a bit on the expensive side given the size.
The Snowflake Cheesecake was more or less a standard cheesecake but I thought it could have used a graham crust. The Xmas Tree was a composite of Very Berry, Matcha and Passionfruit.
Overall Impression of Spiritea
I like Spiritea’s commitment to using quality ingredients (real tea leaves, real milk and pure can sugar). Their setting makes for a lovely way to pass an afternoon with others over drinks and desserts. Their drinks were refreshing and I hope to see perhaps more desserts in the future.
Spiritea Aberdeen Centre 4151 Hazelbridge Way, #1968 Richmond, BC spiriteadrinks.com
