Garraway's Coffee House

You are walking toward the site of Garraway's Coffee House in Exchange Alley. This location earned its place in history as the first establishment in England to publicly sell tea. In sixteen fifty-seven, the proprietor Thomas Garway began offering the infusion to his customers, marketed as a medicinal tonic for nearly every ailment. Before this, tea was an incredibly expensive rarity treated as a guarded luxury by importers, but Garway turned it into a public ritual for the city's merchants and gentlemen.