What Compagnie Coloniale is known for
Compagnie Coloniale traces its founding to 1848 at 19 Avenue de l'Opéra in Paris, positioning itself as one of France's oldest tea houses, still selling heritage-style blends packaged in its traditional tins.
Compagnie Coloniale's own account of its history reaches back to 1848, when the house was established at 19 Avenue de l'Opéra in central Paris — a founding date that, if accurate, would put it among the oldest tea merchants still trading in France, predating better-known Paris houses like Mariage Frères (1854) and Betjeman & Barton (1919). The name itself is a period piece: “Compagnie Coloniale” reflects the 19th-century French trade language of the era it was founded in, when tea, coffee and other goods moved through import networks into Paris grocers and specialty houses.
What survives of that history in the current business is the packaging language more than one famous blend — heritage-style tins presented as a through-line back to the house's founding, sold alongside a broader modern tea catalog. Where houses like Mariage Frères or Dammann built their public identity around a signature blend (Marco Polo, Jardin Bleu), Compagnie Coloniale leans more on the claim of seniority itself as the reason to choose it. For a visitor, that makes it a stop less about one particular tea and more about the idea of drinking from a Paris institution that predates the Second Empire.
How ORBIS reads this city
Best for — French tea blends, flavored teas and herbal infusions
More in Paris
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Where next
- Compagnie & Co (ex-Compagnie Coloniale) — Paris
- Wing Wah Cake Shop — Hong Kong
- Spier Wine Farm — Stellenbosch
Hand-curated for ORBIS · no paid placement