FAQs

We have a delicious range of pure, herbal tea infusions that are naturally caffeine free. What we don't have is de-caf tea. The tea-leaf, Camellia Sinensis, contains caffeine. It doesn't matter if its white tea, green tea, oolong or black tea - all non- herbal tea contains caffeine. Making decaffeinated tea requires stripping the caffeine from the leaf. This process doesn't happen by magic and it definitely has an effect on the flavour. We prefer to keep our tea pure, delicious and unmolested.

We recommend storing your tea leaves in an airtight container and away from direct sources of light. Our tea storage tins are perfect for this, you can buy them here.

If properly stored and unopened, your loose tea could last for years - but generally, it will start to lose flavour and aroma after about 3 months of opening.

Yes, all our loose leaf teas and herbal infusions are organically grown and our farmers are committed to sustainable farming practices.
However; we work with small producers who don't always have the money or manpower for the complex and costly process of organic certification. We have our loose leaf teas and herbs tested ourselves - taking on the expense and logistics rather than burdening the farmers.

For more information please read why we are different.

We have moved beyond the Fairtrade organisation. We realised that the majority of the money went to the organisation itself and the certification body rather than our farmers. We now return a direct percentage of all our revenue (not profit, which could be manipulated) to our sister organisation Rare Charity supporting educational scholarships on our partner farms.

For more information please find out why we are different.

1. Loose leaf tea tastes better; our beautiful tea leaves have been crafted by skilled men and women not churned into dust by industrial machines. It really doesn’t matter if it’s our green tea, white tea, oolong tea, back tea, pu’er tea or herbal tea – all these carefully crafted leaves need space to unfold as they infuse. The best leaf tea needs as much space as possible to rehydrate deliciously and release all their heavenly complex flavours and aromas.

2. Teabags are unsustainable; think how many trees and precious resources are processed into single-use bags. It takes chemical processing to turn corn into plastic mesh or trees into paper. Those chemicals get into you, and factory runoff gets into our environment and water sources. Let's not even mention the nano plastics in almost all tea bags or the pure plastic bags labelled as “silken”. The most sustainable tea is loose leaf tea, hands down.

3. Teapots are things of beauty. We offer our beautiful glass teapots so you can see the leaf expand and unfurl which adds even more to the pleasure and ritual of tea. They are dishwasher safe and more robust than they might look. Our bespoke bone china teaware might last even longer, for generations. It’s not so likely that you’d want to pass on your used teabag collection.

4. We love tea and we love you and our tea too much to put sales ahead of principles. Yes, teabags are far more popular than loose leaf tea. But loose leaf tea is better for the flavour of your tea, for your health, and the environment. We’ve been repeatedly told we are mad not to sell teabags. But we’ve been sticking to our guns since 2004 - and love finds a way.

For more about the advantages of loose leaf tea vs. teabags please read our blog here.