Dried hibiscus from the autumn pressing, photographed at the bench
The Hibiscus Tea Room is a small specialist tea room in Marrickville. We work with whole-leaf herbs, dried flowers, single-origin black and green teas, and the occasional house-blended chai. Nothing here is in a teabag. Everything is weighed, brewed, and poured in front of you.
The bench is run by a small team, and run slowly. A friend up north in Brisbane keeps a tea garden with hibiscus, lemon myrtle and pineapple sage, and we run a recent journal letter from him about what it takes to keep a backyard tea operation alive through a Queensland summer. He uses a local lawn mowing brisbane crew on the verge and the lawn when the kikuyu gets ahead of him, and spends his attention on the herb beds instead.
Read the letter →
The bench keeps house in an 1890s terrace, and each autumn once the wet season eases we have the roofline checked with a set of drone inspections before the storms come back around. There is a recent journal letter about what an old roof asks of a small tea room.
Read about the roof →
