From Rare Finds to Everyday Sips — These Are Our 7 Favorite Tea Subscription Boxes

Art of Tea lets you choose your favorite types of tea while still keeping things exciting with a few surprises. Subscribers can choose from six different tea categories: Caffeine-Free, Wellness, Classics, Single-Origin, Explore, and Pyramid sachets. Once you select your category, Art of Tea will send you 4 ounces of tea (or 2 ounces for the single-origin option) each month for three, six, or 12 months. Teas are offered in both bagged and loose-leaf varieties. 

If you’re new to tea or don’t know quite what you’re looking for, you can take the website’s “tea quiz,” which generates suggestions as a starting point. However, you can’t pick specific teas to add to your subscription, and per serving, it’s on the higher end of the price range. 

Frequency: Monthly | Duration: 3, 6, or 12 months | Tea Types: Bags, loose-leaf | Shipping: Included

If you enjoy learning a bit more about your tea — where it comes from, tasting notes, and in-depth information about its growing conditions — then you’ll love the Atlas Tea Club. Start by choosing from pure teas, flavored blends, or a combination, and then specify your preferences for black, green, oolong, or herbal tea. Each month, you’ll receive two loose-leaf teas from a featured country with a postcard detailing tasting notes, sipping tips, and comprehensive info on the tea and its origin. 

Just know that Atlas doesn’t have bagged options; you’ll need a quality teapot with a strainer, a tea infuser, or a gaiwan to brew these teas. This subscription renews monthly for as long as you like, and nationwide shipping is a flat rate of $4.95. Gift subscriptions with shipping included are available for three, six, or 12 months. 

Frequency: Monthly | Duration: Any | Tea Type: Loose-leaf | Shipping: $4.95

Tea Drops are an innovative way to brew high-quality tea. The brand presses finely ground loose-leaf tea into tablets with fun shapes. Simply drop a Tea Drop into a mug, add boiling water, and it melts like a bath bomb to create an instant cup of fully brewed tea. (You control the strength by varying how much water you add.) Not only is this method convenient, but the lack of tea bags means less plastic packaging and potential microplastics exposure.

Tea Drops also simplifies the process of cooking boba pearls, with single-serving bags you can pop in the microwave or heat up in the same boiling water you use to brew the tea. There are two boba flavors available: brown sugar boba and honey boba. Simply combine your boba and brewed tea, and you’ve got the full bubble tea shop experience at home. 

This subscription includes 10, 15, or 20 servings, in your choice of two, three, or four flavors, and you can get a box every month, every other month, or every third month. There are up to 15 tea options for subscriptions of just tea (without boba), but if you want the full bubble tea experience, there are only six flavors. Additionally, you can only pick a few varieties per shipment, so if you wanted to try all the available flavors, it would take at least two cycles. 

Frequency: Every 1, 2, or 3 months | Duration: Any | Tea Type: Drops| Shipping: Included

With Simple Loose Leaf, you create a profile and answer questions about what types of tea you enjoy, and then your teas are hand-picked in line with your preferences. You still get the excitement of two to four surprise teas every month, but you’ll surely receive something you like. And you won’t get any repeats for at least 10 months, so you’ll always be able to try something new. 

Simple Loose Leaf is less expensive than many other loose-leaf tea subscriptions. However, you get just 0.8 ounces of each type of tea, which translates to about 10 cups brewed, which is also a bit less than others on the market. Another caveat: If you find something you like, it will only be available for a short time, and it likely won’t come up again for a while. 

Frequency: Monthly | Duration: 1, 3, 6, 12 months | Tea Type: Loose-leaf | Shipping: Included

If you avoid caffeine or just love exploring herbal blends, finding herbal tea subscription boxes can sometimes be tricky. That’s where Free Your Tea comes in. Start by setting your preferences (select caffeine-free to get the herbal varieties), and then provide more specific likes and dislikes so Free Your Tea can send you teas perfectly in line with your tastes. Then, rate the teas you receive for even more personalization. You might get some you don’t like at the beginning of your subscription, but the more you rate, the better the personalization gets. If you find a tea you really like, it’s simple to order extra as an add-on to your next shipment. 

Choose from every-other-month shipments that include four types of tea (enough to make about 100 cups), or a quarterly option that includes six teas and enough for 150 cups. Free Your Tea ships only loose-leaf tea, but don’t worry if you don’t have an infuser; the company also includes drawstring bags you can fill yourself. 

Frequency: Every 2 or 3 months | Duration: Any | Tea Type: Loose-leaf | Shipping: Included

If you’re interested in a tea subscription box but know you only like black teas, you need Tea Runners’ black tea box. Each box has four pouches of pure, blended, and flavored black teas — enough for up to 40 cups. Options include unique selections like Tanzania Luponde and Golden Yunnan. 

The subscription is highly customizable, offering three shipment sizes every one, two, or three months, and it’s easy to change your delivery schedule, skip, or pause shipments whenever you like. Tea Runners will automatically generate a combination for your box, but if you see something that doesn’t sound good or another tea that sounds better, you can easily swap choices or pick add-ons. You can even swap or add other types of tea if you feel like branching out to an herbal blend one month. 

Tea Runners has some truly exceptional, rare, and seasonal teas, and we are a little disappointed that many of these aren’t on the list of subscription options. If you really want to explore, there are over 50 black teas that can be ordered individually. 

Frequency: Every 1, 2, or 3 months | Duration: Any | Tea Type: Loose-leaf | Shipping: Included

For the adventurous tea drinker, the Rare Tea Cellar Tea of the Month Club is a fun and delicious way to sample some flavors you might not find anywhere else. It includes two seasonal flavors each month, like Sicilian Blood Orange Green in March and Gingerbread Dream Rooibos in November. Plus, each shipment includes two free samples of other teas. If you sign up for the year-long subscription, you get a glass and stainless steel teapot with your first order. 

Just know that the tea selections are static; swapping flavors and customizing your box isn’t an option. The flavors don’t rotate out either, so you’ll start getting repeats once you’ve subscribed for a year. Another thing to note is that shipping isn’t included; depending on where you live, it can add a substantial amount to the total cost. 

Frequency: Monthly | Duration: 3, 6, or 12 months | Tea Type: Loose-leaf | Shipping: Varies