Dr. Bombay’s Underwater Tea Party

Extremely unique and charming. A perfect place for a quiet, relaxing afternoon. Get the masala chai — they make it in-​house, and even when made cold, the spices are fresh and dynamic. A treasure!

Dr. Bombay’s is an enchanted tea room with an inviting selection, friendly staff, and a beautiful charitable mission to benefit higher education for impoverished young women in tea producing regions of India. I look forward to my next visit!

I found this place on Unilocal and immediately decided to take my friend there when she was visiting. We went all out and did the High Tea which included a pot of tea of our choice, and a two tiered dessert stand of pastries, finger sandwiches, brownies, cupcakes, cookies, and more. The mismatched dishes and tea towels were a wonderful touch.
Our experience was a highlight of my friend’s trip! Everything was delicious and the staff was incredibly helpful. (Especially when I wasn’t sure which teas were safe for me during my pregnancy. Our waitress was very helpful in giving me some recommendations and what to stay away from.)
The place was very cozy and played 1940s Jazz which I loved. And there are so many used books to buy for just $ 1!
I would absolutely recommend this place, and I’m already planning my next visit!

Cutest little tea room I’ve ever been to! My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The two ladies who served our tea and brunch were very pleasant and consistent. I highly recommend this adorable place! Will be back

Great, quiet place to get work done or have company, have a good snack and enjoy an eclectic mix of people watching. Order at the front and pick and open seat (some will be reserved). The staff does not bother you, but the ladies are friendly and quick. Service & food are really good (though I’ve never had the quiche or ice-​cream bc I love their tea & scones. BIG scones) for a specialized, small menu. On a pretty busy & trendy block, but there’s still plenty of free neighborhood parking.

My husband is British, so he’s always keen to go to a tea room. For the last five years that we’ve been in Atlanta, he’s been lamenting not having one, which really meant not having looked for or been told about one. So, I decided to research them and surprise him.
I had planned a big surprise date for him on Sunday, to include the Museum of Design Atlanta followed by a tea room, but renewing our lease for our apartment complex required a last minute trip to the vet to update our pet’s papers, which kept us there til after all the other tea rooms were closed for the day.
So I was pleased that Unilocal showed this place was open til 9pm, so that the big date day wouldn’t be a total wash.
We arrived at 7:45pm, excitedly thinking we had over an hour to have the «cream tea» service. As we were checking out the tea menus, an employee flatly told us the store was closing in 15 mins. This was a shock and a huge bummer.
Trying to be polite, I quickly selected and told her my choice, the Cream Tea with a pomegranate vanilla tea and —
Before I could finish, I was told they were out of clotted cream. And no cream tea service.
Oh. Okay. Well, a pomegranate vanilla tea and a chocolate chip scone. And jam.
You can only have jam if you get a cream tea, I was told. I imagined the dryness of a scone sans cream or jam (and nothing else like butter was offered, so I have no idea if that exists in the store’s world), but kept my order.
My husband ordered a tea and lavender scone.
Thankfully, he really appreciated the gesture I had made, and really liked the space, and the scones were surprisingly not-​dry — and big — so big, they are «broken» in two to fit on the plate.
I couldn’t finish my tea in 15 mins., so got a to-​go cup. But as I waited outside the store for my husband, strolling the block, I couldn’t enjoy my tea, bc each time I tasted it just reminded me of how bummed I had been by my crappy encounter there. Instead of making me feel happy, it was making me feel shite, so I tossed the remaining half of it in a trash can outside.
The scones we hadn’t finished we also took to go, and later that night when I felt a little less crap, I did manage to enjoy. Both were excellent — the lavender strong enough to actually taste without being overpowering.
Still, the negative emotions now associated with this experience are enough to prevent me going back, personally. We’ll be trying Tipple & Rose or one of the other tea rooms in the future. Especially since it’s not in the neighborhood for us, it’s not made itself worth going out of my way for.

Food: A–
Variety B
Health Factor A
Flavor A
Restaurant A
Service A
Cleanliness A
Décor/​Ambiance: A
Prices A–
Location B
Awesome! Great service, tea, coffee cake, brownies, and coffee. Laid back cozy whimsical atmosphere. Jennifer was a friendly and amazing server! I will be back to Dr. Bombays!

We went here over the weekend and it was packed, as expected. I was a little confused on how it worked. Do we sit then order or order then sit. So apparently its self served unless you do the high tea. They have a interesting variety of teas. We got the chocolate mate tea and it was Ok. The cinnamon scone was huge and pretty good.
There were no seatings so we sat in the backyard. I really would like to come back for high tea and take some pics.
The décor is quite quirky and adorable.

All I should need to say is this place is a «coffee shop» that doesn’t open until 11. The joy of sitting across the street and watching people pull on a locked door at 10:30 and seeing the confusion on their face as they question why a coffee shop isn’t open never gets old and I can say this as I did the same thing my first time in. The coffee was fine but not good enough to warrant the $ 2.50 price tag. Huge area inside with books you can read and I assume buy because I kept seeing signs on the shelves saying every book was $ 1.00. They apparently sponsor children in foreign countries so some of their proceeds go to that which is cool. They also have some outdoor seating as well. Will not go out of my way to get coffee or anything else here.

This is an adorable tea shop in Atlanta’s Candler Park area near Emory and the Fernbank Museum. Dr. Bombay’s hosts high tea everyday, but I suggest that you make reservations on holidays or special occasions. High tea as well as the menu prices are reasonable except I wish that their menu considered dietary needs such as Celiacs Disease.

I absolutely love this place. It’s beautiful, has very unique décor, great teas and books for about $ 1 a piece. I love that it’s never super packed and its peaceful. Also, great sweets.

«Of all the silly nonsense, this is the stupidest tea party I’ve ever been to in all my life.» — Alice in Wonderland (1951)
What a fun place to visit and even to enjoy high tea, but I hope you aren’t in a hurry. Okay let’s face it, the idea of High Tea is a leisurely late afternoon pick-​me-​up and it should be just that — leisurely. However, our tea was more than half gone when the food arrived. That is too slow.
The interior is covered in book shelves and a myriad of books — these books can be purchased and the money goes to the charity they support, which is amazing. The ceiling is covered in parasols, upturned to create a funky pattern and a more cozy feel (okay, yes, it makes the place feel smaller, but not in a bad way).
My family tradition has been (for 11 years) to have High Tea the day after Thanksgiving. Well, we have hit all the places in San Francisco — tradition adjusted to the Day after Christmas, which makes Atlanta the location. After many years of wanting to visit Dr. Bombay’s, we finally made it here. There were 4 of us — 3 adults and 1 teen (my niece is 14). She isn’t to a tea-​drinking age yet, so she got hot chocolate which was oddly served in a double old-​fashioned glass. I transferred it into a tea cup so she could a) pick it up and b) it would cool off so she could drink it. Not sure the cost of the hot chocolate, but I would have hoped for more than a small glass — a small tea pot would have been preferred.
Water glasses are tiny, but they provide a bottle on the table so you can refill your own. For every two adults at the table, they recommend (and it is included in the price) 1 pot of tea. Oddly, any place we have done tea service in San Francisco, every adult gets their own pot. I can drink a whole pot myself — and these were small. Tea costs very little in the gran scheme of things. We opted for a black and a green tea — we picked the Cranberry blood orange and the Ginger Mint (green). Both were pretty delicious, but we polished them off and could have consumed more.
After about an hour, our snacks came to the table. I had put into my reservation about my tree nut allergy and nothing that came to the table had any nuts. Coincidence or thoughtfulness? No clue, but I was grateful either way. Again, different from what we are typically accustomed to, we didn’t get a choice of sandwiches — it seemed like there was a standard menu for the day.
Sandwiches: Egg salad/​Pimento cheese
Quiche: Kale and tomato
Scones: Chocolate Chip
Mini Cupcakes: Orange
Shortbread cookies
Brownie bites
«Clotted» cream
Out of the food, the quiche was pretty tasty and the scones were amazing. I was also a fan of the fudgy brownie bites. The sandwiches were so-​so as there was little filling to two large slices of baguette. The cupcakes were middle of the road — the cake was good, but the frosting was so sweet that it was painful (you know what I’m talking about). For the price of the High Tea — $ 17.50 per person (2 people is $ 35), I would have expected a bit more.
Also, oddly there are people stationed all around on their laptops as if this were a Starbucks — very strange (and annoying) to have this woman with her laptop encroaching on my High Tea with the glowing Apple in my face. Thankfully, halfway through our afternoon, she was asked to move so they could set up for High Tea for a party of 8 — she was in their space.
I do love this and love the eclectic décor and feel — but I just want a bit more. I’ve been spoiled by 10 years of great experiences in the Bay Area, I guess.

So this place be pretty cute, y’all, and everyone (like me) seems to be A FAN FAN FAN!
The number teas, the scones, the teacups, the setting, all of it… allll of it is adorrrrrbs!!! I definitely will try to come by more often!!! My friend held her bridal shower here during high tea and it was so fitting:
–between the 7 of us, we got 4 pots of tea – there are like 500 000 000 types of tea on the menu, and all the ones we chose were delish! (earl grey, dark chocolate matte, and i don’t rem the other two)
–enough finger sandwiches (egg salad, pimento cheese), scones (choco chip + one other), quiche, and assortment of cookies, mini cupcakes, and brownies to satisfy all of our cravings – read: i only meant to eat ½ a giant scone but def ate the entire thing slathered with extra clotted cream (and I ate lunch prior… WHY IS MY STOMACH A BOTTOMLESS PIT)
–the space is very cute and quaint with vintage teapots and cups, linens, paper cranes and parasols hung from the ceiling
And so regrettably, –1 star for the service – but totally understandable and really voicing a concern so that people know that you should definitely plan on a big block of time to be there for tea time:
–it was a little confusing on what was happening/​what was suppose to happen once we sat down, the staff is pretty slim there – maybe 2 – 3 people total managing the entire place. I think also bc beside managing the high tea folks, they also have non-​high tea customers that are there to relax, enjoy tea, and also walk in customers for tea/​food to-go…so understandably busy (but so awesome it’s busy)
–they knew we had reserved high tea, but it just took so long for anyone to give us any sort of direction or take our orders
–after we received our tea, it was another 30min before we got the food – ie. we drank allllllll the tea prior to getting any food – we thirsty y’all! but no worries, just got them to refill with water
–so definitely plan to stay for 3hrs: P
PS. I’m the worst customer — can someone share the history of their name?

This place is on the list of Eater Atlanta’s 15 essential Coffeeshops so I decided to check it out. It’s definitely one of the coolest Coffeeshops in Atlanta!
The walls are covered with books, which you can buy for a dollar, and the roof is covered in lampshades and umbrellas, its such a cool vibe. The only downside to this place is there isn’t a ton of parking, and there aren’t a lot of outlets. However, it’s such a cool place it didn’t bother me at all.

Awesome nook for a high tea with your girlfriends or just an afternoon hideout by yourself to drink tea and read kind of place. Today was my 2^nd time and everything was great!
As far as seating goes, there’s 2 long tables in the back room, couple in front and couple more in the main room where you order. It is a bit cramp in the back room so be aware that you may be bopped couple of times when people are making their way to the restroom.
Ambiance is great with dimmed lighting, cute mismatched tea cups and plates, and hanging upside down umbrellas on the ceiling. Reminds you of Alice in the Wonderland type of vibe.
It offers various types of teas from matte, black, green, and more! Tonight we tried the Earl Grey, Vanilla Caramel, and Green tea kiwi and all were great! Pastries range from pimento & egg salad finger sandwiches, delicious scones & cream, fruit tarts, quiches, key like pie bites, and more. They’re all so good! This place is definitely a treat =)
One con is the parking. You have to drive around for a street parking, which is definitely not fun playing musical cars.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: wonder, joy, comfort, tranquility
My good friend Thomas and I ventured to this place just this morning around 11:30 for a tea date/​catch-​up session. It’s nestled right into the sweet heart of Candler Park off Dekalb Avenue. I had heard great things (from Unilocal) about its charm and almost fairy-​tale-​like interior, so I was eager to see the place with my own eyes.
I was very very VERY pleased! «Pleased» may not even suffice — I was THRILLED! I felt like a bookworm/​Rory Gilmore swept straight off the streets of London amid the windy Winter. It was straight out of an eccentric magazine, Pinterest, a romance novel, whichever sounds best to you. The décor of the room just adjacent from the front door was especially breath-​taking and made me want to whip out a journal and begin writing some prose. In fact, I plan to visit this place again soon to do just that. Perhaps it will become my «writing spot.» You always hear of all the best writers having places where they just feel comfortable posting up for hours on end. This place was BOOKS UPON BOOKS UPON BOOKSHELVES! Hanging from the ceiling were antique umbrellas in various colors and patterns. Beautiful old rugs and comfy, antique furniture covered the expanse of the library room. Heaven? Heaven.
My friend had gotten there just a few minutes before me and ordered some Mango Black Tea. He was thrilled — as was I — that it was presented with a porcelain tea pot, cup and saucer, spoons, and a blueberry scone complete with ample whipped cream and jelly on the side should we need it, all on a cute striped plastic carrying tray. I walked into the establishment as he was carrying this lot from the front counter into the next room (books upon bookshelves) so I sheepishly followed him, overwhelmed immediately by the décor and thus shrouded in the silence of wonder and child-​like glee.
We decided to sit at a large dark-​wooden table near the window (which, I might add, had beautiful curtains that added to the cozy ambiance of the space). I realized that I would too need a tea cup, so I left the table briefly to head back up to the front counter to ask for one. Before I even reached the counter, the kind gentleman (perhaps with a true English accent — hard to tell), who had undoubtedly served my friend our lot of tea and scone + dressings, knew exactly what I needed and exclaimed with a kind smile, «You need a cup, don’t you?» He handed me a cup and saucer plus a spoon and I headed back into the book room, very pleased with that interaction.
This place — aside its apparent greatness — truly lives up to its name! The presentation of our tea + scone made me want to have a TEA PARTY! The sight flooded my brain with all the happy chemicals of childhood nostalgia.
This place also serves ice cream! Thomas and I took a look at the selections just before we left and I noticed that they serve my all-​time favorite — SUPERMAN! For those who don’t know, it’s basically Vanilla ice cream streaked with red, blue, and yellow food coloring just for fun.
I can’t wait to go back again and again so I can eventually try EVERYTHING! And like I said, this place will likely become my writing spot. I’ve been hunting for a place that makes me tick and I think this just might be it.

Atlanta needs Starbucks. Part of the problem may be that people here smoke and drink a lot and so their taste buds are poorly calibrated. Dr. Bombay’s coffee is like battery acid, church basement Alcoholics Anonymous bathroom brew. You can’t charge $ 4 for coffee that was made in a Bunn diner machine that hasn’t been cleaned in years.
Nice ambience.

What a precious little place! I stopped in here with my honey for some breakfast and loved it. They have tons of amazing tea selections that are listed according to tea type (black, green, herbal, etc), so it makes it easy to select. I went with a coconut black tea. It was delicious!
Their food selections are minimal– breakfast pastries, quiche, cakes– but they all looked very good. They also do a «high tea» which includes all kinds of delectables. Their website mentioned sandwiches and soups but maybe I was there too early to see those options.
The vibe is very low key and the décor is unique– reminds me of an old attic. They have a couple of tables in front of the store front as well as a back patio for outdoor seating. I would definitely recommend checking out this unique gem!

A charming tea shop with a solid and pleasant selection. The interior is whimsical without being cheesy, and the paper lanterns and umbrellas are well-​balanced with books and low light. I prefer the comfy chairs to the long tables and have some issues with how practical it may be to get to the far side of those tables, but appreciate that it’s set up so that talking to strangers is possible though not required.
The shop is invested in funding scholarships for impoverished women in India, where most or all of their tea is sourced, a goal I am happy to support.
The one issue I have with Dr. Bombay’s is that the snacks are heavy on gluten. I did note a vegan pastry available, and there is also ice cream.

Okay, this place is awesome. The interior is what I want my dream home’s library to look like. There are tons of books lining the walls (you can buy them and support charity), upside down umbrellas decorating the ceiling, and a super cozy atmosphere.
I came here for high tea with the internets a few days ago. There were 11 of us splitting six pots of tea, so we decided to run the gamut of the tea menu. And that tea menu is legit. Let me see if I can remember them all:
— Cranberry blood orange: fruity and dark
— Black currant cardamom: good, and had a good spiced taste to it (to be clear, I mean spiced, not spicy)
— Irish breakfast: a classic, did not disappoint
— Chocolate mate: no one really cared for this one… tasted like chocolate water
— Kiwi pear something: my favorite… light, delicate, and fruity
— Chai: great, great classic chai, not overly spiced — I really enjoyed it
Whew. Glad my short-​term memory hasn’t gone completely to shit in my old age.
Anyway, the only disappointment of the day was some of the food. The finger sandwiches were kind of boring and the quiche was bland. The chocolate chip scone was the best the thing on the fancy tiered trays. The mini-​brownies were also really good. Everything else (mini-​cupcakes, cookies) was just okay.
High tea costs $ 17.50 a person, which is a little steep (haha, get it?) for half a pot of tea and some finger foods. But I think the appeal is the experience. Our server was great, and very patient. This is definitely something you want to do with a few other people.
And this is something I would definitely be up for again. And if no one wants to be fancy with me, I’ll just come alone and enjoy a pot of tea, a scone, and a book.