Torra Tea

Torra opened in August 2024 in a shopping district off Dishman Mica Road in Spokane Valley, and it is a genuinely odd and welcome hybrid: a Scottish high-tea room that is also a craft bar. Owner Kathryn Soady named it with the Scottish Gaelic for "from the castle", and fitted it out in gilded, streamlined glamour — chandeliers, deep earthy tones, curated artwork, crisp white linen — rather than the floral cottage look the format usually attracts.

The tea list is the substance of it: close to forty loose-leaf teas across black, green, white and yellow, plus a wide herbal range, served hot or iced. Almost as many whiskeys sit on the other side of the bar, and the two halves talk to each other — the same leaf that goes into a pot goes into tea-infused lemonades and into the mocktails, which are built rather than poured. For a non-drinker that structure is the appeal. In most bars the alcohol-free list is a smaller, worse version of the main one; here the tea programme is the deepest thing in the building, and ordering from it is ordering the house specialty.

The food runs the full range of the format, from freshly baked scones and finger sandwiches for a proper afternoon tea through to short ribs and meat pies for a heavier, pub-inspired meal, which means it works as dinner rather than only as an afternoon stop.

This entry is graded three rather than four: the mocktails are documented by the Spokesman-Review and the Inlander as part of the drinks list, but the individual builds are not published in a form that could be read for this guide, so none are recorded as signature drinks. The tea programme is the reason to come and it is verified in detail.

Open Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 8pm. Closed Sunday and Monday.