Specialty tea,
brewed for everyone.
A San Diego–based tea house pouring high-mountain Taiwanese oolongs and ceremonial-grade matcha from Shizuoka at certified farmers markets across the region. Honest pricing, honest leaves, brewed with research-grade rigor.
Making specialty tea
truly accessible.
We started Iro Tea on a simple but uncommon belief: specialty tea should be for everyone — not just those with six-figure salaries or the academics writing for niche tea journals.
Our menu celebrates both the depth of tradition and the simple bliss of daily enjoyment. From rich, high-mountain oolongs to vibrant ceremonial-grade matcha lattes, we craft each drink with care — testing dozens of farms for each tea, micro-tuning our water to draw out every subtle note, and dialing in ratios and steep times to bring out the soul of each origin.
All our offerings are priced with love for people — not the elasticity of the market. Some shops charge a premium for a cup of tea. Others cut corners to keep prices down, relying on syrups to mask low-quality leaves. We do neither.
Our selection method — blind tastings, controlled water, published scores — is on the record → Method No. 00 · The Standard.
High-mountain Taiwanese oolongs and ceremonial-grade matcha from Shizuoka — vetted on the cup, never masked by syrup.
A specialty cup that respects your wallet. We price for daily drinkers, not collectors.
Remineralized water, blind tastings, calibrated screening protocols. Our R&D is on the record.
We meet you at the market, mid-stride. No reservations, no pretense — just a really good cup.
A specialty cup is built
on open work.
Behind every drink is a small archive of blind tastings, water-chemistry experiments, and source comparisons. We publish the methodology so you can taste what we taste.
A Blind Survey of Eleven Matcha Specimens
Nine first-flush and two second-flush matcha samples, blind-coded and tasted in the usucha format under a calibrated two-rater screening protocol across four sessions. Each specimen graded across six sensory dimensions on a five-point scale.
Latest in an ongoing series — Twelve Matchas in Milk is now in the archive. Browse all R&D reports →
The one that came out on top.
The first tin from the work above — M099, the first-flush Shizuoka matcha that ranked first of eleven in our blind usucha survey. 40 g, $45, shipped from San Diego.
We meet you
at the market.
We're honored to serve at certified farmers markets across San Diego County. Come say hi, sample a cup, and see how seriously good tea feels at a stand that meets you mid-stride.
Schedules can shift seasonally — confirm via Instagram @iro.tea before you head out.
Pop-ups, festivals, brewery collabs.
From Carlsbad Village Faire to Adams Avenue, we travel for the right occasion. Follow along for the seasonal calendar.
Awards ceremonies, weddings, offsites.
Caffeine-free menus, dairy-free options, and ceremonial-grade matcha service available for private events. Inquire below.
Say hello.
Catering inquiries, market bookings, wholesale, press, or just a really good question about tea — we read every note.