Probably fewer than you think.
For most speciality coffee shops, six excellent teas will serve you far better than fifteen average ones.
It can be tempting to build an enormous tea menu. More choice feels like a good thing.
But every new tea means another product to store, another line to reorder, another bit of training for the team and another packet potentially sitting on a shelf losing freshness.
And then there is the person actually trying to order one.
Give someone six genuinely different teas and choosing is pretty easy.
Give them twenty five and suddenly ordering a cup of tea feels like homework.
So, what is the magic number?
For most smaller speciality coffee shops, I would aim for somewhere between five and eight traditional teas.
That is enough to give customers real choice without filling the menu with teas that all start to look remarkably similar.
A strong starting six might look something like this:
English Breakfast Tea
Earl of Grey
Sencha Green
Mojito Mint
Red Berry Burst Infusion
Rhubarb Rooibos
You have something familiar, something fragrant, something green, something fresh, something fruity and something caffeine free with a completely different character.
Six teas. Six reasons to choose them.
That is already a very credible menu.
Leave some room for discovery
If your customers are interested in tea, add one or two more specialist options.
Jade Oolong could introduce something more complex and intriguing.
White Peony could give you something lighter and more delicate.
The point is not to keep adding tea for the sake of having more choice.
Every tea should earn its place.
It should bring a flavour, style or drinking experience that the rest of the menu does not already offer.
What about matcha, chai and hojicha?
I would treat these slightly differently.
Matcha, chai and hojicha increasingly behave more like café drinks in their own right.
They can be served hot or iced, paired with different milks and used as the starting point for seasonal drinks and new flavour combinations.
So rather than counting them as three more teas, think of them as another part of your non coffee menu.
A focused traditional tea selection alongside matcha, chai and hojicha gives customers plenty to explore without creating an enormous menu.
When does a bigger tea range make sense?
There are always exceptions.
If you run a hotel, an afternoon tea venue or a destination café where tea is a significant part of the experience, a larger collection can make perfect sense.
Your customers may actively want to explore different origins, styles and flavours.
But for an everyday speciality coffee shop, simplicity has real value.
Less stock to manage.
Less waste.
Easier training.
More confidence behind the bar.
And, potentially, more budget to spend on genuinely good tea.
Give every tea a reason to be there
There is another advantage to a smaller menu.
Every tea gets a little more space to have its own character.
Breakfast Tea does not have to be the anonymous option sitting underneath Americano on the menu. It can become your house Breakfast Tea, chosen because you love its body, maltiness and ability to stand up beautifully to milk.
Green tea does not have to be listed simply as “Green Tea”.
Tell people it is Japanese Sencha. Tell them it is fresh, vegetal and completely different from the black tea they normally drink.
Suddenly there is something to talk about.
Provenance. Flavour. Preparation. Character.
The same things that have made speciality coffee interesting can make tea interesting too.
Better choice, not more choice
Ultimately, the number itself is not especially important.
Five might be perfect for one café. Eight might be right for another.
What matters is that every tea has a purpose and your team understands why it is there.
I would always choose six teas that a barista knows, drinks and can confidently recommend over twenty teas they know almost nothing about.
Because a smaller menu does not have to mean less choice.
It can simply mean better choices.