Why it belongs in ORBIS
La Tetería opened its first Santiago location in January 2007 as, by its own account, Chile's first specialized tea store, after two of its founding partners received a blooming tea as a gift from a friend living in France and decided to bring the format to Chile.
La Tetería opened its first Santiago location in January 2007 as, by its own account, Chile's first specialized tea store, after two of its founding partners received a blooming tea as a gift from a friend living in France and decided to bring the format to Chile. The shop built its catalog around green, black, oolong, white, matcha, and pu-erh tea alongside rooibos and herbal infusions, sourced from origins including Japan, China, India, and Ceylon.
Alongside the tea itself, La Tetería sells Japanese tea ceremony accessories and runs tastings and courses aimed at teaching customers how to prepare the varieties it carries, extending the shop's role past retail into tea education.
Almost two decades after opening as the first store of its kind in the country, La Tetería's catalog — spanning six major tea categories from four countries of origin, plus formal Japanese ceremony gear — still reads as a founding claim the shop has kept building on rather than resting on.