Disco Herbal Tea Shop

There's a bar on Brick Lane with three large Chinese characters above it.

涼茶舖 — Loeng Caa Pou — Herbal Tea Shop.

Not what you'd expect to find inside a restaurant. That's the point.

Bun House Disco has a proper cocktail bar — built around a collaboration with Circle 13, and built around an ingredient most London bartenders have never touched -

Classic Cantonese herbal tea.

"We grew up being forced to drink it," says Z, one of the founders of Bun House. “For every single Cantonese kid."

That's not nostalgia. That's the starting point.

Circle 13 didn't steep some chrysanthemum and call it a day. They isolated each flower individually — extracted them separately, tasted them, understood how they behaved — before combining anything.

"If the non-alcoholic is bad, then everything is bad."

The base comes first. The spirit comes after. To bridge the gap, they added fruit and a touch of acid — not to disguise the herbal character, but to give the palate somewhere familiar to land before the stranger notes kick in.

Then look at what ended up in the glasses.

Sauvignon Blanc in the Paloma. Amaro Montenegro and Cynar in the Chrysanthemum Martini. Nin Jiom — an actual Chinese herbal cough syrup — paired with Green Chartreuse and Cynar in the Throat Reviver.

Cocktails

Sichuan Pepper Paloma

Grapefruit, Red Sichuan Peppercorn, Tequila, Sauvignon Blanc

Osmanthus Gimlet

Osmanthus, Mango, Honey, White Vermouth, Vodka

Green Plum Pisco Sour

Green Plum Juice, Meijan Liqueur, Rock Sugar, Pisco

Hoisin Cobbler

Hoisin Syrup, Shaoxing Wine, Pineapple Juice, Jamaican Rum

Sweet-Grass Old Fashioned

Chinese Liquorice, Coconut Washed Bourbon, Rock Sugar

Chrysanthemum Martini

Chrysanthemum Liqueur, Amaro Montenegro, Vermouth Blend, Gin

Throat Reviver

Nin Jiom, Green Chartreuse, Cynar, Dark Rum, Mint

Herbal Tea

The non-alcoholic menu is where it started, and it holds up on its own. Take one chilled herbal tea outside onto Brick Lane, why not?

Chrysanthemum Peach

Chrysanthemum, Goji Berries, Peach, Rock Sugar (Add Mezcal)

Lychee 5-Flower

Lychee, Chrysanthemum, Honeysuckle, Prunella, Lily Flower Bulb, Osmanthus (Add Vermouth & Aperitivo)

Ginger Jujube

Ginger, Jujube Red Date, Goji Berries (Add Cognac & Benedictine)

The add-ons — Cognac & Benedictine into the Ginger Jujube, Vermouth & Aperitivo into the Lychee 5-Flower — aren't afterthoughts. They were chosen the same way everything else here was chosen.