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“If you are cold, tea will warm you; If you are too heated, it will cool you; If you are depressed, it will cheer you; If you are excited, it will calm you,” former British Prime Minister W.E. Gladstone said back in 1865.

This quote, painted on the wall in white letters on a red background, greets visitors at the Tea Spa and nicely sums up the idea behind the place: that tea can provide immense benefits to a person’s body and mind.

Located above the Tea Addict cafe-lounge in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta, the Tea Spa, formerly Q Spa, opened its doors in October. As the name suggests, all the treatments offered are based on tea.

Andradea Putri, the owner of Tea Spa, said tea was not only good for your insides, but its leaves were also a fine ingredient for the outside of your body.

“Our overall concept can be best described as back to nature,” she said. “We get all our basic ingredients from tea, from the massage oil and body scrub to the foot and hair treatments.

“While other spas only use different tea flavors, we actually include real tea leaves in our treatments and we do the whole process ourselves to create the finished product.”

The interior of Tea Spa is decorated in mostly earthy colors of green and brown, with a generous seating area up front to allow visitors to sit down and browse through the different treatments.

“We use the leaves of three different types of tea: green, black and jasmine,” Andradea said. She explained that each type was used for different treatments according to its health properties.

“Tea has many benefits,” she said. “It is not only relaxing, but also helps to rejuvenate, detoxify and slim the body.”

It was hard to choose from the extensive menu, ranging from body scrubs, massages and facials to foot reflexology and hair and scalp treatments, but I eventually settled on the Sleep and Sound Tea Treatment, a two-hour package.

Susi, one of the massage therapists, led me into one of the six treatment rooms, each named after a different tea flavor, like rosemary and camomile.

Simple yet classy, the room featured a single massage table and a bathtub. The ceiling was covered in white fabrics; as I made myself comfortable it felt like I was lying in a canopy bed.

The treatment began with a traditional aromatherapy massage. The therapist was highly skilled — it was one of the best massages I have experienced in Jakarta.

She applied the right amount of pressure and, with sometimes firm, sometimes gentle strokes, she massaged the green tea oil into my legs, arms and back, using both her hands and elbows.

Susi immediately found the most tense parts of my body and spent much time working that tension out.

As my muscles began to relax, I slowly dozed off. While I very rarely fall asleep during massages, at Tea Spa I felt so at ease and tension-free, that closing my eyes and dreaming came naturally.

The massage lasted for an hour and then Susi continued with the second part of the treatment, a face massage.

First she covered my face with moisturizer and then began the massage. She started with the forehead, making small circular movements out toward the temples, and then worked her way down to my cheeks, chin and neck. Since the face is a rather sensitive area, she was sure to only use light pressure.

After the face massage, which lasted around 20 minutes, Susi applied a mask to my face. While the mask was drying, she prepared a herbal tea bath for me, the last element of my treatment package.

She then removed the mask with warm towels and told me to take a dip in the tub for around 10 minutes. It felt a little weird to take a bath with jasmine tea leaves floating in the water, but in the end, it was a good way to end the treatment.

I wrapped up the relaxing afternoon with — what else — a warm ginger tea, before heading home to enjoy a good night’s sleep.

Tea Spa 
Jl. Gunawarman No. 9
Kebayoran Baru
South Jakarta 
Tel: 021 725 0114 
Open daily from  9 a.m. to 9 p.m.