Bend, OR

While I love waking up and smelling the coffee just as much as your Average Joe, I must admit that tea is my first love. I started with microwaved cups of sugary Christmas tea and have since cozied up to flavors of chai, milky black breakfast teas, and perfectly iced Rooibos sun tea. So when I heard about Townshend’s, Bend’s downtown tea shop, I knew I had to revisit my old tea flame.

Comfy, funky and a bit like hanging out in your bohemian aunt’s uptown loft, Townshend’s is a spot of hip and cozy sophistication in downtown Bend. The décor, a cushy mix of candy-colored couches, dark wood and brick, is as inviting as the spicy aroma that clouds your head as you walk into the Bond Street shop. The loose-leaf menu is a 12-page tea volume, with 84 varieties of green, white, black, oolong, chai, rooibos, máte, and herbal teas. All loose-leaf teas are available hot or iced in 3 different sizes, including a pot to share among friends. Townshend’s also serves tea lattes and bubble tea, a sweet creamy tea with tapioca balls that you suck up through a special wide straw.

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A friend and I spent the greater part of a Friday morning at Townshend’s, she with her schoolbooks and I with my laptop. We settled into two orange chairs and I quickly connected to the free wi-fi, an easily accessible strong signal. My friend got a sweet taro bubble tea and I finally decided on an icy pint of pear and pomegranate tea, perfectly refreshing on this warm summer day.

Townshend’s attracts a mixed crowd of students, ladies meeting for a spot of tea and conversation, downtown shoppers stopping in for a cup of tea to go, and chic hippy types ordering loose leaf teas by the ounce. If you choose to linger, you can entertain yourself with one of the board games stacked on the table adjacent to the counter, which I noticed en route to the restroom, located through the shop’s back door.

The shop, on 835 NW Bond Street, is open daily from 9am to 10pm, so you can get your tea fix nearly all hours of the day and evening. I’ve been to Townshend’s three times since I discovered it, and I think it’s safe to say that I’ve found a new favorite spot.