About Us

Exploring the vast landscape and culture of tea is our mission at Windy City Tea.

5,000 years of tea culture can hardly be expressed by a tea bag sold in a yellow box. Learn why loose leaf tea offers a far superior cup of tea. With hundreds of teas to pick from, building your personal tea collection is a journey across the years and across the globe.

Windy City Tea offers a unique combination of a retail Tea Shop and Tea Room in Yorktown Center.  

Shop the mall with a hot or iced tea in hand or take a tea class and learn things about tea that you never knew before.  Windy City Tea is a great place to linger, gossip, indulge, and catch up with old friends! 

Why the name Windy City Tea?

We have to back to 2737 B.C. in China The Emperor of China is boiling water for dinner. A gust of wind fills his pot with leaves. Despite the leaves dancing in the water, he takes a sip. “How wonderfully refreshing!” says the Emperor. That is how man discovered tea!

We founded Windy City Tea to celebrate the serendipity that brought tea into our world.  Coincidentally, Chicago is known as the Windy City, but that is a whole different story altogether.

Some old History

Formerly known as Tea Canal, we purchased the business with that name, but rebranded as Windy City Tea.  We head into our third year in business with a new outlook for tea aficionados.  Even the Tea Room gets it own name, the Emperor's Tea Room. Armed with a bit more knowledge and lots of experience, we hope to bring your a great tea experience. New teas, new accessories and new programs are in the works!

Thanks to the many customers we have seen in the past years who have given us compliments and encouragement to continue on our course.  

Note: We often asked if we have multiple locations.  We have had and have no association or relationship to any store with a name similar to Tea Canal. We are independently owned and operated as a family owned small business.