Gorreana Tea Factory — Restaurant in Ribeira Grande

Interesting brief stop. But, respectfully, I can’t understand why the tea sample setup at the end of the tour is so inefficiently, inconsiderately and poorly designed? It would be so simple to fix, improve guest experience, and be less stressful/confusing… leading to higher profits! Why would you have guests enter the tea sample zone and immediately have a table with sugar and stirring sticks, then a tea sample station surrounded by dirty cups (yuck!), then more tea samples, and then finally the necessary cups to sample the tea at the end of the sample zone?! Why on earth would you have people go to the end of the narrow sample area, only to have to move back to the beginning of the sample zone and create a messy, chaotic space for your guests? The congestion of tourists just standing in the space confused, wanting samples, employees pushing in to move dirty dishes and replenish clean cups, and then tourists moving to the end to get a mug and then go back to the front to get sugar and tea… it was very off putting. You obviously should have clean cups immediately available when guests enter the sample zone (instead of sugar and stirring sticks), then the tea, then sugar/stirring sticks (if I worked here, I’d eliminate the sugar and stirring sticks to encourage guests to just try the tea, reduce waste and cost and probably increase sales in the cafe portion…), then a spot to leave the used/dirty cups as people exit the sample zone and enter the store portion. I saw confused tourists pick up USED cups to sample the tea! Gross. By the time I rushed to sample the teas and made it to the shop to buy tea, I didn’t know which I had sampled and which I wanted to buy. There was so much chaos and disorganization and people just standing confused and standing blocking the merchandise while waiting for their family to leave the sample zone… I just left without buying anything. If bags of tea were next to the corresponding tea samples, I would have purchased 1 of each as souvenirs and gifts for friends, family, and our dog sitter. This would also spread out the messy congestion in the shopping area and increase your sales. The cafe section looked lovely, unused and relaxing, but the peacefulness I felt when I arrived was gone and I couldn’t wait to leave. I left without buying anything and...

As people who drink copious amounts of tea back in the UK, Gorreana Tea Factory was one of the main things my partner and I wanted to visit on Sao Miguel. We did have some difficulty in getting there due to the unreliability of public transport and distance from Ponta Delgada. I would recommend going via car rental if you can. Once we arrived though, it was well worth the hassle. It’s all free to tour, with just a few voluntary donation boxes. There is a very nice cafe and balcony area as well as a shop and you can walk around the tea fields and see the workers collecting the tea leaves. We were also given a short tour by one of the staff members, a young man who spoke great English and loved his football. We chatted with him for a while about Liverpool FC and Sunderland. He was really friendly and informative though sadly we never got his name to add to this review. We thought he was a great tour guide and added to our time there! We would highly recommend Gorreana to anyone...

We made this the first stop once we landed on Sao Miguel Island and could not have been more disappointed.

We got there around the time that it opened and while we understood that it would be a self-guided tour that early, there was no signage directing you anywhere. The staff was rude and ignored us, instead speaking amongst themselves behind the counter while there were customers waiting and trying to get their attention. It would have been one thing to just tell us that they were not open yet (despite it being after the opening time posted outside), but they didn’t even do that.

We even went back a second time later in the week to pick up some tea, thinking that we might have a better experience at a different time of day, but the staff was still curt and rude, trying to rush us out of there as soon as possible. This was the worst experience we had in the Azores and it...