Tallest Rooftop Tea House Restaurant in Stone Town, breathtaking views with authentic cuisine & live local music daily. The building that today hosts “Emerson on Hurumzi” at 236-240 Hurumzi street, Hurumzi, Stonetown, Zanzibar was built in the 1870s by the powerful merchant Sir Tharia Thopan. He served as a principal financial adviser to Sultan Bargash and was the head of customs. The roof top Tea
House itself may have been designed as an observation point to control the activities of the port, which was located in the waters just in front of the nearby “House of Wonders”. Tharia Thopan stayed here only briefly before the building was sold. It was then used by the Archbishop of Zanzibar and the folklore says that during this time Arabian slave owners were paid by the British to free their slaves in this building. The street ‘Hurumzi’ got its name from this period: Hurumzi is the combination of HURU uhuru (freedom) MZI mzee (old man). After that it was owned and occupied by a series of Ismaili and Arabian families over the years. The building was nationalized in 1967 and occupied by poor Swahili families until the early 1990s when Emerson Skeens and Thomas Green started the restoration of the building. In 2014 Emerson on Hurumzi took over the premises and reopened under new management. We opened 10 rooms and two apartments and two studio's for longer stays. Lunches, dinners and sunset cocktails are served in the roof top restaurant, the highest "tea house" restaurant in town, with breathtaking views of the sea and Stone Town. In Roshani, the chambre separée on the third floor, the Emerson Zanzibar Tea Ceremony can be experienced. Reservations are required for the Tea Ceremony in Roshani and dining experience in the rooftop Tea House restaurant.
