Great Wall Tea Co

Lauren Bowler, owner of Great Wall Tea Co., was never much of a coffee drinker. “I experimented with coffee as a teenager, and it always made me sick,” she says. “Which was kind of heartbreaking, because in my family I come from a long line of super-committed, many-espressos-per-day type people.”

She didn’t discover the world of tea until university, when her mother sent her a bag of genmaicha (a Japanese green tea with roasted brown rice) and some “straight-up plain rooibos.” It was a moment of hot-beverage redemption. No stomach pains, no jitters, just pure pleasure. She was hooked. Successive trips to Southeast Asia and Japan fanned the flame, and her love of tea merged with her passion for community when the Great Wall Tea Co. opened in December of 2010, serving hot tea by the cup as well as bulk loose-leaf tea.

“I spent a lot of time at the Granville Island Tea Company and what stood out for me was the connection among strangers sitting around having tea,” she says. “For us it was very intentional to have a place where you sidle up to the bar and say, ‘Hey barkeep, I’ll have a cup of …’ and then meet new people. It’s like a pub that way.”