Rare Tea

Maylis Briand runs Elysse, a small Epicerie in the heart of beautiful Bordeaux in South West France. Maylis works with small companies, like us, who take great pride in what they do so she can deliver the best products available to her customers.

If you look at the top row of shelves on the left you can see Rare Tea tins in the middle.

Knowing that in exquisite little shops around the world you can find my tea is one of the best feelings in the world.
Yes, yes I know what your thinking. Everyone here at Rare Tea HQ tells me I’m a mad obsessive and its true. I have the shallow heart of a grocer but it is full to bursting.

This is the lovely Sophie Rushton-Smith, PhD. She ran the 2010 Asics British 10K London run on Sunday 11 July (one of the hottest days of the year) raising money for the Alzheimers’ Society.

Instead of simply asking for sponsorship money, Sophie hosted an afternoon tea event for her friends, neighbours and parents from the local school, with home-made cakes, scones and Rare Teas.

We were incredibly proud that Sophie ran with Rare Tea’s logo.

This morning I got this lovely message from Kate Mayglothling of Wigmore High School.

I remember when I started Rare Tea back in 2004 it was so hard to get people to look beyond the the cheap supermarket teabag. It’s amazing how things have changed and how concerned the new generations are with the provenance and ethical implications of their consumer choices. It makes me feel incredibly hopeful.

Of course you might think I was being altruistic giving school children some of my tea but really I was just trying to get them hooked on the good stuff early. It was all just a shallow marketing plan!

Dear Henrietta
Thank you for all your help, articles and the wonderful tea! My workshop with the pupils was the talk of the school.
We looked at several of your videos from YouTube via your website and we looked at Fair Trade and focused on several products from Africa but primarily your tea. We all sampled your Malawi and Oolong teas together with some xxx teas and some xxx bags. You will not be surprised to know the pupils’ favourite was your Lost Malawi! A few discerning tea drinkers loved your Oolong.

It was so useful to be able to watch you at the tea plantation and then taste the tea. We succeeded in challenging stereotypes and making the link between our shopping trolleys and the farmers at the other end. It was so successful so thank you very much indeed!

Its not just Blighty that enjoys a good cuppa. We are extremely proud to be working with the superlative Supreme Roastworks in Oslo.

They’re a company who source, import and roast their own coffee, supplying restaurants, cafés and bars across the city. It’s a company after my own heart run by two lovely gentlemen, Magnus and Joar.

Yes, they’re specialty is coffee rather than tea, but they decided that if Norway is going to get the best coffee, it has to get the best tea too.
So they supply my tea.

I am extremely proud to tell you that Angela Hartnett loves my tea! I did a tasting for her and I have to tell you I love Angela. She is really kind and warm and funny. Not many chefs are quite as lovely.
You can now find my teas at Murano.

There’s a wonderful man in Bath who loves bread as much as I do tea. Five years ago, he opened up a cookery school with his wife, Jo. His classes have been described as ‘life-changing’, winning numerous accolades, and his bread-making course is booked out months and months in advance. People are queuing up in their thousands to catch some of the infectious passion he has for all things dough.
His name is Richard Bertinet, and I’m so proud to tell you that he also serves my tea.

On a Saturday morning you can pop into their place in Bath for the finest bread known to man and you can also pick up some Rare Tea for the best weekend breakfast known to man or woman - French or British.

I can’t tell you what a difference it made to me and Rare Tea to win this award last year. It was all thanks to you.
Lovely customers and friends, it would be so very, very kind if you voted for me again.
Please follow this link the category is Best independent or online retailer.

As you may know if you’ve been follow my blog I’ve recently been to South Africa to visit the farm where my Rooibos grows wild.
Here it is- available on the website and at Waitrose.

And here is the film I made about the farm for Guardian Travel
And here is the article I wrote to accompany the film.

Its one of my favourite places in the world and the rooibos really is spectacular.

On a wet and miserable Tuesday in June we had the most splendid evening at Paul A. Young’s chocolate shop in Islington. Over the past few months, Paul and I have been working together on producing tea chocolates and bars, and this evening saw the launch of our White Silver Tip tea chocolate. We plied members of the press and bloggers with cocoa nib infused gin and jasmine tea cocktails, before introducing our wonderful collaboration.

Paul is a true chocolate genius and created a chocolate that got the most out of our beautiful, delicate silver tip. He used a water based ganache so as not to overpower the tea, and a similarly light flavoured, smooth chocolate, so they complemented each other perfectly. Over the next few months we will be creating more tea chocolates, and you’ll be able to buy our chocolate and tea gift sets very soon from our website.

Click here to hear more about our White Silver Tip tea chocolate

I recently received this lovely email and pictures of the prettiest tea-lady ever.

I have always liked “real” tea, but found it hard to come by. Lara and I were taking her sister for a holiday swim at the Guildford leisure centre (our pool in Putney has no slides) when we heard you on the Radio 4 Food Programme. Lara has also become a bit of a tea addict (she is 9), so we decided to try you out straight away.

To date, we have tried Silver Tip White (most unusually lovely one we’ve tried), Lost Malawi (our favourite everyday tea), Oolong and Jasmine Silver Tip. We like them all in different circumstances, and Lara’s Mummy is very pleased that Silver Tip White is low in caffeine!

We plan to work our way through the whole menu, and our only request is that Lost Malawi starts to be available as a refill pack, as we don’t know what to do with all the spare tins!

Thank you for introducing us to rare tea!

Kind regards
Lara and Alastair

Messages likethis make me more happy than I could possibly describe. Thank you so much Lara and Alastair.

I promise the next order of Lost Malawi tea will come in pouches and tins. I stupidly didn’t order enough pouches last time and they ran out so quickly. Sorry. But the tins can be used for all sorts of things- I use mine for storing pens on my desk. I have some in the kitchen full of sugar, split peas, cashew nuts, peppercorns and bay-leaves.