The Tea Factory Tea museum in Houwerzijl, Netherlands
In the tiny village Houwerzijl, about 24 km away from the city of Groningen, tea lovers will find an unexpected bit of paradise: the Tea Factory! I don’t really understand what a tea museum is doing so far out in the province or how it ended up there, but I as soon as I learned it exists, I decided that I had to go there.
So one Saturday, I decided to go ahead and visit the tea museum. It is difficult to reach by public transportation, and I wanted to cycle anyway. Warning: Google Maps travel time estimations do not take into account that there is always headwind.
Anyway, once I finally go there, I went straight into the tea museum. The entrance fee is a very modest €3.50. The museum itself is very small; I managed to spend only a bit over an hour there, but it was interesting.
The best parts, however, were the tearoom and the tea shop, which are freely accessible. In fact, the tearoom seems to serve as a village café. Imagine being so lucky! Service was very good; I got served relatively fast even though most employees were on their lunch break, and it was no trouble at all to make two separate orders (I wanted to try more than one kind of tea, of course!). I was even addressed with the formal pronoun, which is not that common in the Netherlands.
It was incredibly hard to choose, because the menu included dozens and dozens of tea. I ended up having two kinds of tea: Mao Feng green tea (China) and Golden Dragon black tea (China). Unfortunately I need multiple cups to properly get to know a tea, but both were good anyway. I especially liked the Mao Feng. There were also interesting-looking sandwiches and all kinds of scone platters. I went for a house specialty: tea cake! It’s a rich, spicy cake made with smoke tea and raisins. It was absolutely delicious.
Finally, the tea shop. All the teas on the menu and more; maybe hundreds. And those are only the teas. Luckily there are shopping baskets - I know because I needed one. I ended up buying: Lung Ching “Dragonwell” green tea from China, Young Hyson green tea from China, Türkiye broken orange pekoe (black tea) from Turkey, and Nam Lanh orange pekoe (black tea) from old tea trees in Vietnam. On my way to the cash register I saw tea pearls as well, so I just had to grab a blooming tea pearl with jasmine and lily as well. Once again, friendly service, and helpful if you need help.
The Tea Factory’s site admits that it is not completely accessible for wheelchairs, but the largest part of the museum and the tearoom are accessible, as is the tea shop. There is free parking space for cars, but no bike racks. (I didn’t see any other bikes either, but I just left my bike somewhere. Who is crazy enough to come to Houwerzijl by bike in the middle of November anyway?)
I did not expect to make such a long post, and I don’t really expect anyone to go to the Tea Factory because of this, but I wanted to shower it with all the praise it deserves anyway, because it was definitely worth the visit.