The Spice and Tea Exchange

Judy was so helpful, fun and friendly. She is enthusiastic and educated about her products. I love the idea of tasting multiple salts, spices and sugars. They have a buy 5 get one free for the flavored salts. Ghost pepper, truffle salt, Applewood smoked, Himalayan pink salt andy fave is the scorpion pepper sea salt.
Also the Korean BBQ spice and hickory rub spice blend are awesome!
I hope to come back. So great for gifts!

Very friendly and knowledgeable staff. They had everything I wanted at reasonable prices

I stopped by this cute shop and found some very cute items, salt spoons and a rubber ducky tea ball. I tried out the sangria tea which was delightful. The shop keeper was very nice and helpful.

I’m a sucker for bulk tea and spice stores… something about seeing the rows upon rows of giant apothecary-​style jars is deeply satisfying. Sometimes it even ends up being cheaper to buy by the ounce, but not at the Spice and Tea Exchange.
This cute shoppe is located on the Water St. drag, near a bunch of other cute little shoppes and eateries, and definitely seems aimed at tourists. It’s very charming inside, with rustic-​looking tables and shelves, and crates set up near the counter. They have the usual large glass jars arranged on shelves, and you’re welcome (as far as I can tell) to pull down and sniff as many as you like. They also have premade packets of salts and spices hanging on racks — most of these were about $ 5, which is more like what I usually expect to pay for a full bottle of spices!
Granted, there were lots of fancy things here that you don’t see at a typical grocery store: Himalayan and smoked salts, tomato powder, spinach powder, pumpkin powder, and several kinds of smoked paprika. They also had dry dip mixes and flavored sugars that looked fun. I expected to see more tea varieties, though — they definitely focus on spices and salts vs. tea.
I didn’t experience any negative customer service like other reviewers; in fact, I was mostly left alone to browse and sniff the jars. But the prices were high enough that I didn’t end up buying anything. A cute place to look around, and probably a good store if you need an exotic or hard-​to-​find spice, but spendy.

We had such a fun time in this shop! There is such a great variety of spices, teas, sugars… Both of the folks working were super helpful. I believe they were the owners. We sampled the sugars with the shopkeeper’s guidance and tasted everything from habanero sugar to salted caramel sugar to espresso sugar. Yum! I love the way the store is laid out. We all had a great time and will definitely be back when we visit Pt Townsend again.

We walked in the store intending to buy some spices and tea. The lady working at the store was very rude. I was smelling the tester grinders of spices and she said you have to taste them you can’t smell them because they are grinders. Then she told us that we could lift the lids and smell the teas and other spices. My nine year old lifted a lid to smell and she told «DO NOT TOUCH THAT!» in a very rude manner. We immediately left and we wouldn’t buy anything in there if our life depended on it. If my son was doing anything wrong I would have stopped him. Or she could have asked me to tell him not to touch anything. Instead she lost a sale.

Awesome place, and after our third visit to town we are sad we didn’t discover the place earlier. Knowledgeable and helpful staff, incredible variety and a great store, I bet dad would love to spend the full day just enjoying the amazing smells and tea flavors. Everyone in our party left with something!

It’s rare to encounter rude shopkeepers in Port Townsend and neighboring island towns, so I was quite amazed by my experience with owner, Judy. After one small purchase each, my sister and I decided to make another — a bag of seasoned orzo. The price on the bag was clearly marked $ 4.95. When she rung it up, she quoted a price of $ 7 something. When I showed her the price on the bag, she firmly said that she hadn’t finished changing prices on a number of items and the price was $ 6.95. She wouldn’t budge. Plus it appeared she also wanted to charge sales tax — on food? Having worked in retail and customer service in a past life, I knew the proper thing to do was to honor the price on the bag. The orzo was not purchased and I told her that hers was not the best way to treat customers. As we turned to leave, she hollered, «Pardon me? «No need to return to that store. Judy needs to be retrained in customer service and appreciation or let someone else handle us. A smile and a pleasantry or two wouldn’t hurt either.

I’ve been to the Spice and Tea Exchange twice since it’s been opened. I am delighted that a spice and tea store opened in Port Townsend!
The shop is very cute and nicely laid out. The employees are friendly and helpful.
The tea prices seemed a bit high to me ($ 4.89/ounce) but the spice prices seemed a bit more reasonable. It’s a great option if you only need a tsp. or T. of something. If you come here you only buy what you need, not the whole bottle!
They also carry a variety of spices, salts, sugars, rubs, blends, and peppers and chilis.
I will continue to shop here when I’m in the area. I hope they succeed! They’re a great addition to PT.