The Way of Tea 3 — Restaurant in Florence

I wanted to love it here because of their extensive tea menu but I found the service and experience lacking for the price point.

The good: I enjoyed the scones and there’s a wide tea selection. We had the iced mango-peach-ginger and it was very refreshing.

The ok: the Firenze sandwiches and biscotti were fine but not worth 20 euros for three small sandwiches and six small biscotti.

The bad: I drink a lot of loose leaf and herbal/fruit teas, especially Chinese loose leaf tea that I personally purchase in China and Taiwan. I came two days in a row and both teas I ordered (a Yunanese tea and a fruit tea) were terribly over steeped. They left my mouth feeling dry and the primary taste was bitterness/tartness. They thankfully replaced the Yunanese tea, though it was still about 15-20 seconds over steeped but a server told us the fruit tea was not possible to be oversteeped and offered us water to dilute instead. It actually is possible to oversteep fruit teas - I have done so myself at home. The servers also didn’t check in on us at all, though we mentioned we would order scones later.

I went a second time in hopes the first experience was a fluke but I think this place steeping the teas without a timer or for consistently too long is the trend rather than exception. It’s a shame to ruin what otherwise seems like decent quality tea.

EDIT: we purchased some loose leaf English breakfast on our first visit and just brewed some today. The quality of the tea leaves is VERY poor, with very short/broken leaves and powder. The taste is similarly quite poor - I would 100% prefer nicer teabags or loose leaf from a known brand like Harney and Sons. We paid 8 euros for 100 grams. At this point I’m wondering if the owners know what tea is supposed to taste like or whether this is knowingly a scam...

Not worth it - AT ALL

What a « surprising » experience. Went for brunch with friends. We called the same morning to book a table we called at 11.15 and the place was opening at 11.00.

They told us right away that some Stuff on the menu where not available which is strange because the place just opened

We arrived later than expected but the place was empty. Again the waitress explains to us what’s available on the menu we order and our order arrived :

The brunch with Salmon is almost 40 euros and is not even 100gr of salad and a very suspicious salmon. The brunch menu also included “a freshly baked panini” - that never came. Here is how the experience went form bad to worse: the waiter informed us when we asked for the rest of our brunch that “ITS A PRINTING MISTAKE, IT IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE MENU” despite being written in 2 languages. After 20min debate she agreed with her manager to gives us a panini - which turned out to be small breads. If we want a with something inside it’s extra. As per her say, panini are little breads in Italy. Unfortunately for her 2 of us were Italians. So for 40 euros : nothing is prepared there- it’s all industrial food hence the terrible quality and the absence of must of what’s on their menu if you show up last minute. Overpriced for absolutely no reason. Although In the end they did offer a small discount Honestly the bad faith and passive aggressiveness was off the chart instead of just admitting the wrong...

The products are amazing for sure but we went yesterday and had a terrible experience with personnel. Women that were attending were very rude with us, they assumed that we were not vaccinated because we are Latin-Americans, and when we just showed our certificates they served the tea in a very bad attitude, when I asked for the products to buy they didn’t show them to me, they made a wrongful charge to my husband and gave my friend something different than what he asked for. As I really liked the tea, I went today to the store nearby the Segnoria Piazza and it was a total different experience a very nice woman helped my to find the tea I wanted to buy and show me few more very nice teas. If you like this products definitely go to the...