Maison Lierre — Botanical Teas, Paris 1899

A salon of leaf, blossom and root behind a green-glass door, where every cup is poured the way a garden is tended: patiently, and with an eye for beauty.

The house

A tea room grown like ivy

In the spring of 1899, Céleste Varenne hung a single copper kettle in the window of a narrow shop and painted the door the green of new leaves. She had spent ten years among herbalists and tea merchants, and she believed a cup should taste of the place it came from: the dry hillside, the river mist, the hedgerow after rain.

Maison Lierre grew the way ivy does, a room at a time, climbing toward the light. Today its salon is lined with glass jars of lime blossom and verbena, rose petals and jasmine, all blended by hand at the long zinc counter and poured at little marble tables under a ceiling of painted vines.

— C. V., propriétaire (a fictional founder of a fictional house)

Three signature blends

From the zinc counter

Lierre d’Or

Golden Ivy · tisane du soir

Lime blossom, lemon verbena and whole chamomile flowers, a calm golden cup for the hour when the lamps are lit.

The pot · 1 fr. 20

Rose de Montmartre

Montmartre Rose · thé noir aux pétales

A bright Ceylon black tea folded with rose petals and a whisper of vanilla bean, for long afternoons and longer letters.

The pot · 1 fr. 40

Brume de Seine

Seine Mist · thé vert au jasmin

Green tea scented with jasmine blossoms and a cool leaf of garden mint, pale as the morning river under the bridges.

The pot · 1 fr. 30

Afternoon tea · from three o’clock