Best Tea Cities in America (2023 Data)

Tea has a storied history in the United States, dating back to the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Since those revolutionary days, the beverage has woven itself into the fabric of the nation, evolving in taste, tradition, and significance.

Fast forward to the present, and tea holds a significant place in the daily lives of Americans. A testament to its enduring popularity, tea can be found in almost 80% of all U.S. households. In 2021 alone, Americans consumed nearly 85 billion servings of tea, translating to more than 3.9 billion gallons. By the subsequent year, the United States had clinched its position as the leading tea-importing country globally, with imports valued at a whopping 560 million U.S. dollars.

America’s fascination with tea isn’t just limited to its consumption in the comfort of one’s home. Across the country, tens of thousands of tea shops, tea houses, and cafes offer a variety of teas ranging from traditional green and black to the ever-popular bubble tea. To identify the tea capitals of the US, we at Chinese Teas 101 compared the largest cities with populations over 100,000 using three key indicators: the number of tea establishments per capita, per square mile, and the average review rating of tea places in a city. In our research, the tea establishments we considered include tea shops, tea houses, tea rooms, bubble tea shops, and cafes that serve tea.

Key Findings

Methodology

For this study, we analyzed the 330 largest US cities with populations over 100,000 people. After excluding cities with fewer than 10 tea places from our datasets, we arrived at the following numbers:

• Tea places data set: 323 cities with 10 or more places
• Bubble tea shops data set: 125 cities with 10 or more places

Our tea places data set includes tea shops, tea houses, tea rooms, bubble tea shops, and cafes that serve tea. The bubble tea shops data set comprises only bubble tea shops.

In collecting the data, we considered only the city proper, excluding cities in the surrounding metro area.

Each city was evaluated based on three key metrics, listed below with their corresponding weights:

• Tea places per capita (30%)
• Tea places per square mile (30%)
• Average tea place review rating (40%)

Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale.

We determined each city’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score. We then used the resulting scores to rank the cities in our dataset. A total score of 100 is the highest score a city can achieve, indicating it’s the best for tea lovers.

Data sources include the U.S. Census Bureau and Yelp.

About Us

Chinese Teas 101 is a leading resource on all things tea, from the health benefits of various tea varieties to data-driven reviews that simplify the tea buying process. We also conduct polls and analyze third-party sources to gain insights into consumers’ tea-drinking habits and identify trends in the tea market.

Fair Use Statement

You may use any portion of this study with a reference link to our site.

If you wish to access the raw data from this study for insights not covered in the report, please contact us.