Finding a good cup of coffee is an easy job in Beirut, but finding a good cup of tea where most places serve you a hot cup of water along with a Lipton tea bag is a totally different story!
A friend of mine introduced me a while ago to a place in Achrafieh called “Gou”, a Restaurant/Patisserie/Salon de Thé, or so says the sign at the entrance. Anyway the place has several menus for food an beverages, and totally separate one for tea only containing at least 30 different selections! Each with a brief description about the ingredients and it benefits, along with the recommended infusion time.
On my first time there I order “thé du Hammam”, a Turkish blend I guess, and on my second time I had a Russian selection called “Anastasia”. The former was my favorite, although the latter was not bad at all.
Any tea you select is priced at 8,000 L.L (almost double the price than any other place), but you’ll actually get served a hot pot of water, along with the tea to infuse, that will make you at least three good cups of tea guaranteed to make an hour of your afternoon. I know it worked for me! 😛
If you’d like to try it, Gou is located at Tabaris, Saint Nicolas street, right behind IBL bank.