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At Rare Tea we honour the best tea traditions but it is also our ambition to innovate. We don’t want to get stuck in the past, but create new traditions.
Kippers and bangers are no longer an everyday staple of our breakfast table. We have moved on with our breakfasts. Now it's time for our tea to catch up.
English Breakfast tea was invented in the 19th Century. We are long overdue a revolutionary new blend to shape our future. Not with unsustainable teabags in new guises, or laboratory created flavourings - but by bringing you the best, most delicious teas, blended for you today, not your ancestor's breakfasts.
We are thoroughly committed to transparency but this is a rather secret blend. We don’t want to give the whole game away. Rare Tea has been so heavily plundered by other tea companies seeking to copy what we do (since our start in 2004), that we are keeping this invention close to our chests.
The teas come from our partner farms mentioned throughout this website. It is a blend created by our Rare Tea Lady Henrietta Lovell from fresh spring harvests from China, Japan and India.
EU Shipping Information
FREE Europe Tracked when you spend £50 or more
Europe Tracked Delivery from £4.99
Europe Express Courier from £21.99
*Subject to next day cutoff and postcode location. Availability of rates depends on location and order weight. For a complete overview of our shipping rates please see our delivery page.
All prices quoted in GBP and will be converted to your local currency if available.
IOSS for EU Orders
Rare Tea Company uses IOSS (Import One Stop Shop) for EU orders placed on the website.
How IOSS works and how it is applied on the website.
The IOSS scheme allows us to collect VAT during checkout on your behalf, meaning that no VAT is due when your order is assessed by your local authority.
- If the combined value of the products in your cart are equal to or below €150 (excluding tax), VAT will be included at the point of sale and you should not be charged any fees when your order arrives.*
- Once the €150 threshold is exceeded VAT will be removed from the items in your cart and from this point onwards when your order ships you will be liable for local VAT, duties and import fees.**
To avoid unnecessary import charges, keep your orders under €150 (excluding tax and shipping). Tax is included on all applicable products at Rare Tea - if your order is applicable for IOSS tax will be shown at the checkout.
Valid for IOSS |
Not valid for IOSS |
Your order confirmation and shipping confirmation emails will also confirm whether your order is valid for IOSS.
As with all complex shipping methods, the IOSS system isn't foolproof, and orders that are valid for IOSS are occasionally incorrectly charged VAT by customs.
If an order shipped via IOSS and that you have paid VAT on does get incorrectly assessed by customs, please don't worry. It's usually just a mistake that can be fixed by contacting customs and explaining that the order shipped via IOSS with VAT already paid.
If this does happen to you then we suggest the following:
- Please contact us before speaking to customs.
- We will double check that the order was valid for IOSS.
- We will provide a VAT receipt and a shipping label as evidence.
- Contact your local customs for assistance, using the shipping label as evidence.
- If all else fails we will attempt to get our shipping provider to investigate, but this process can take a while.
*Please note - this does not include any applicable duty charged when the item is cleared. Within the EU tea is free from duty, but your region might have a different rules for non-tea items such as tins and teaware. Any duty charged is payable by you, the customer before delivery via your local customs authority.
**In special cases where custom fees have been unexpected we have retroactively refunded these in select cases. As of the 15th February 2023 (the start of IOSS) we have discontinued this process.
What is IOSS?
The Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) is the electronic portal businesses can use since 1 July 2021 to comply with their VAT e-commerce obligations on distance sales of imported goods.
Up until the 1st July 2021, no import VAT has to be paid for commercial goods of a value up to EUR 22. New VAT eCommerce rules abolished this provision as of 1st July 2021. Thus, from 1 July 2021, all commercial goods imported into the EU from a third country or third territory is subject to VAT irrespective of their value.
What is IOSS for?
IOSS allows suppliers and electronic interfaces selling imported goods to buyers in the EU to collect, declare and pay the VAT to the tax authorities, instead of making the buyer pay the VAT at the moment the goods are imported into the EU as it was previously the case (for products over 22 EUR).
What are the advantages of IOSS?
IOSS facilitates the collection, declaration and payment of VAT for sellers making distance sales of imported goods to buyers in the EU. The IOSS also makes the process easier for the buyer, who is only charged at the time of purchase, and therefore does not face any surprise fees when the goods are delivered. If the seller is not registered in the IOSS, the buyer has to pay the VAT and usually a customs clearance fee charged by the transporter.
What countries does IOSS apply to?
IOSS applies to the EU member states of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
It does not apply to the EEA.
How much tax will I get charged?
Tax will be charged at the base VAT rate of the shipping country.
Full details of IOSS can be found on the European Comission website.
Any questions? Please get in touch!
Send us a message using the form below, or call +44 (0) 207 681 0115 (9am - 5pm GMT, Monday - Friday).
Returns
The Rare Tea Lady believes that our teas are some of the greatest in the world, and that our range and service are second to none.
In the isolated case that you are not completely satisfied with any tea or teaware you purchase from our website, please get in contact with our customer services team to discuss returning your order.*
In most instances we will give you a full refund of the item’s cost excluding postage. We may ask you to return the item to us. Customers in the European Union have a statutory cooling-off period of fourteen days that is not affected by this guarantee, but any tea pouches much remained sealed for this to be in effect.
*We only accept returns/refunds for tea within two months of receipt, because it is impossible for us to know if the tea has been stored correctly.
