The TWG Tea Gallery is the homegrown brand's largest boutique globally.
The museum's permanent exhibit is personally curated by President and CEO Taha Bouqdib.
The TWG Tea Gallery is open for 24 hours daily at Changi Airport Terminal 3 in Singapore.
The TWG Tea Gallery houses over 1,000 tea blends, centuries-old teaware, and a sorbet made from a rare Indian black tea.
Name a single country foreign to tea. We’ll wait. For centuries, it has crossed borders and social classes, moving from elaborate ceremonies built around its preparation in Asia to simply a way of life for many Europeans. In Singapore, Taha Bouqdib, President and CEO of V3 Gourmet and Co-founder of TWG Tea, is celebrating all that it stands for with the opening of TWG Tea Gallery at Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 3.
Set in a sprawling 2,700-square-foot outlet, the TWG Tea Gallery hosts several spaces, including a takeaway-only counter for exclusive sweets, a retail floor with an inventory of over 1,000 tea varieties, and a museum filled with heritage teaware and artworks personally curated by Bouqdib himself. And should the towering space somehow escape travellers’ attention, the aroma of TWG Tea’s signature blends drifting through the terminal should do the job. Consider it an olfactory-led boarding announcement to step inside.
The visual centrepiece of TWG Tea Gallery will be difficult to miss. Suspended across a 23-foot-high ceiling is a hand-painted world map tracing the global network of tea producers. Created entirely by TWG Tea’s in-house creative team, the impressive artwork is more than just decoration. It offers a glimpse into the expansive geography responsible for bringing tea from the fields to the table, while reflecting the international travellers passing through Singapore and the connections created each time people move across the globe.
Below it rests the Gallery’s permanent museum, where more than 200 antiques dating from the 17th to 20th centuries offer a more intimate look at tea’s cultural history. The collection is not simply about showcasing beautiful vintage objects behind glass. Instead, they were selected for the stories they tell and to expound on a bigger story about the societies and rituals that shaped tea-drinking over generations.
One highlight is an Art Deco teapot from 1930s Germany, an ornate piece that makes keeping tea warm feel like an exercise in bringing glamour into everyday life. There is also a Yixing clay teapot from Jiangsu, China, which offers a lesson in just how personal tea can become. Left unglazed by design, its porous clay absorbs the teas brewed inside it over time, gradually developing a distinctive character and flavour bespoke to its owner.
For travellers with barely any time before boarding, the TWG Tea Gallery offers a takeaway selection of TWG Tea macarons and patisserie. But the real reason to make a pit stop is the Terminal 3-exclusive icy confectionery inspired by Singaporean flavours, including coconut, raw palm sugar and pandan. Tea aficionados should make a beeline for the sorbet made with Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe black tea, sourced exclusively from a single producer in Sikkim, India.
Those who would rather take a little piece of Singapore home with them can pick up an exclusive version of TWG Tea’s Grand Voyage Tea blend, presented in packaging inspired by the TWG Tea Gallery’s world tea map. The Singapore Surprise Gift Set makes another suitably portable souvenir, bringing together Singapore Breakfast Tea, Silver Moon and 1837 Black Tea in a trio that offers a tidy introduction to some of the brand’s signature blends.
Founded in Singapore in 2008, TWG Tea has since expanded from its first local boutique into a global tea enterprise with more than 70 locations across 20 countries. Further openings in Kuala Lumpur, London, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia and Seoul are already in the works, suggesting that its appetite for expansion is hardly cooling. Still, for a brand that began here, something is touching about giving Singapore its most ambitious tea experience yet. Tea may have travelled the world, but TWG Tea knows exactly where its journey began.
Where: TWG Tea Gallery, Changi Airport Terminal 3, Changi, Singapore
When: Daily from 12am to 12am
Contact: twgtea.com/sg