Great Christmas gifts - all wrapped up
We’ll even wrap it and send it for you if you give us enough notice – last orders for Christmas pack and post within the UK 10th December.
Once you have made your order, send us an email at telling us what you have ordered and the name and address of the person we should send it to. If you want to add a message to go with the gift, let us know. We will send you an email to confirm receipt of your gift order details.
Tea and £2 off TEA
5 tea merchants are offering customers £2 off a subscription to TEA magazine when you order their tea.
Nothern Tea Merchants is a long established tea merchant based in Chesterfield but if you don’t live nearby you can order online at http://www.northern-tea.com They have a superb choice of quality teas as well as tea paraphernalia and a tea room within their shop, which features in Margaret Thornby’s Guide to Tea Rooms of Britain.
First Class Teas are based in Cambridge and also sell teas online at http://www.firstclassteas.co.uk They “exist to improve the quality of tea that people drink in their everyday lives”.
Robert Wilson has lived and worked on tea estates in Sri Lanka and has a passion for quality tea. Robert Wilson’s Ceylon Teas sell award winning, seasonal, single estate Ceylon teas from their online shop at http://www.wilstea.com
Butterworth and Son Ltd sell tea, biscuits and conserves from their base in East Anglia and were featured in the Summer 2008 issue of TEA magazine. For details and information you can contact them on 01284 767969
Steenbergs have organic and fairtrade teas online, with Darjeeling and English Breakfast loose leaf teas listed as two of their best sellers. Visit them at http://www.steenbergs-tea.com
Tea Tour 2009
The 2007 tour was featured in TEA magazine. This tour has much to offer anyone interested in learning more about tea from the country with a long history of tea production. Go to http://www.wilstea.com and click the NEWS icon for more information.
Let me Loose
Let me Loose!
Britain’s daily newspapers bid “Happy 100th Birthday” to the tea bag on 13th July 2008, with William Gorman, Executive Chair of the Tea Council quoted as saying that there is no way we’d have the time or inclination to make tea “the old way” with today’s busy lifestyles. Tetley’s Director of Corporate Communications added to the praise of the tea bag by telling us that getting up in time to measure the leaves, brew our tea, strain it and clear away the tea leaves just doesn’t have the same appeal.
It’s all about rushing, grabbing a quick cuppa, an easy life – or so we’re told. What they failed to mention, however, is that frankly some of the ‘tea’ in the ‘great British tea bag’ is so poor it’s no wonder our supermarkets can sell packs of 80 for 31p. We’re also told that Tetley alone uses enough tissue to make its tea bags every week to cover 128 football pitches. Isn’t that just a colossal waste of resources?
Many Britons today are, in fact, considerably more discerning, don’t want to spend their lives at high speed, clutching hastily made mugs of tea made by dunking a tea bag unceremoniously into hot water, and care about the quality of the tea they consume. We’ve heard of the slow food movement, well all hail slow tea! It tastes good, it’s relaxing to sit down over a pot of ‘proper’ tea and, in today’s world, there are many solutions to the perceived problem of the leaves. Internal strainers, Bodum-style teapots, ‘magic’ teapots that strain your brewed tea magically into the cup, to name but a few. Come to mention it, the clever old tea strainer is quite effective and the leaves are great for composting.
So, as the tea bag celebrates its centenary, maybe it better watch out as its old enemy the loose leaf is re-gaining its popularity. Margaret Thornby, long time researcher of quality tea rooms and Editor of tea talk magazine tells us,
“Loose leaf tea consumption may still be, by far, enjoyed by a minority but I’m certain it’s steadily growing in popularity. Tea rooms, delis and cafés are casting aside the tea bag in favour of good, fashioned loose leaf tea served in a teapot. Some do use ‘modern’ teapots with internal strainers; some bring a timer to your table so you know when the brew is ready. After all, is three minutes so very long to wait for our favourite brew? I think not.”
Focus on Yunnan Black Tea
The teas that came out top with our tea tasters were Yunnan FOP from August Moon Teas, scoring 82.75% and Yunnan FOP from All About Tea, scoring 82%. Our tea tasters found both these teas to have excellent flavour and a pleasant fruity taste – both were very refreshing. You can order tea from August Moon Teas at http://www.augustmoonteas.co.uk and from All About Tea at http://www.allabouttea.co.uk
Great gifts - and we’ll even gift wrap free of charge
Once you have paid for your order, just send us an email at
Tell us what you have ordered and who you would like us to send it to if their address is different to yours. We will even gift wrap it for you if requested – make sure to let us know any message you want us to send with the gift.
Special offer on Guide to Tea Rooms plus TEA magazine
Purchase a copy of Margaret Thornby’s Guide to Tea Rooms of Britain (4th Edition) and 5 back copies of TEA magazine for just £15 – what a great deal. Usual price for 5 back copies of the magazine plus the Tea Room Guide is £21, so you save £6. There are no hidden costs, postage and packing is included. UK and Europe only.
Back issues of TEA at sale prices
Win a teapot
The Tea Lady
Having travelled the length and breadth of the country in search of good tea rooms for the past fifteen years, Margaret Thornby can lay claim to being something of an expert in this field. She has now published, with Whitehill Publishing, 4 Editions of Margaret Thornby’s Guide to Tea Rooms of Britain. The unique features of the tea room guides are that:
1. Margaret Thornby carries out all the research herself, often visiting up to 10 times as many tea rooms as she includes in each Edition of the Guide.
2.The research is entirely independent – no tea room can pay to be in the guide or influence inclusion by any means other than its merit as a tea room.
3.The research is conducted anonymously. Margaret wants to experience each tea room as any other customer might, with no advance warning given to tea room owners and, therefore, no preferential treatment influencing her views. Her visit is a snapshot of each tea room on the day she visits as it would be for any other customer.
4.Important details such as physical access to and within the tea rooms and whether loose leaf tea is served is included by each tea room listing.
Such is the growing interest in tea and tea rooms these days that Margaret has also, with Whitehill Publishing, launched a quarterly magazine called tea. This is aimed at people who love tea rooms, tea and all things tea and edited by Margaret herself. This magazine stands on its own in this country and features tea merchants, tea rooms, the ‘politics’ of tea, tea outside as well as within the UK and much more. Margaret’s passion is undoubtedly loose leaf tea and on this she stands firm – no tea bags dunked in a mug for this lady. Her standards are high whether it is service at tea rooms to quality of teas sold by merchants. She is upholding the great British tradition of tea drinking and interest in our daily brew.
Margaret Thornby can be contacted via Whitehill Publishing. She does not send out or agree to photographs in order to preserve her anonymity. Once people recognise her, she will no longer be able to conduct her research successfully. She is, however, quite happy to be interviewed by telephone, or by responding to questions sent by fax or email.
Fax: 0116 2351844
email: – address to Margaret Thornby
Derbyshire tea merchant trains tea tasters
Most of us take our regular cuppa for granted. We
enjoy the brew with little awareness of the work that
goes on behind the scenes to bring us the humble cup
of tea, which is much loved in Britain. But how is
tea selected for sale to the British consumer? There
are many aspects to the tea trade and tea tasting is
an important part of ensuring the quality of tea
brought to you, so that you can enjoy the best.
Where do you go if you want to learn the fine art of
tea tasting? It’s not the sort of course you see
advertised at your local college after all. When tea
magazine wanted some advice for their lay tea tasters
who review teas for the magazine, they turned to
Northern Tea Merchants in Chesterfield, Derbyshire.
David and James Pogson welcomed the tasters to their
tea tasting room and showed them how tea tasting is
done in the trade. This process enables merchants to
select teas that match their requirements for quality
of leaf and taste. It’s as serious a business as wine
tasting! tea magazine’s tea tasters didn’t sample
anything like the vast quantity of teas that
professional tasters might but were delighted to learn
some of the principles involved and to get to grips
with tea terminology.
Each issue of tea magazine, published quarterly,
features a different tea that our tea tasters have
reviewed for readers. This gives you the chance to
discover new teas, find out what an ordinary tea
drinker like yourself thinks of them and, perhaps,
give you the motivation to try one you’ve never had
before. The Summer Issue of tea focusses on Russian
Caravan teas.
Sale now on
Reflecting Lives magazine is now HALF PRICE at just £1.50
Back copies of the Winter Issue of TEA magazine, a special Scottish Issue, are also HALF PRICE at £1.50
Bus Stop Poems is now on offer at just £4 – usual price £7.95
NO hidden costs, no extras, no postage charges. The price you see is what you pay.
Click on the relevant book or magazine to purchase at the sale price.
These prices are UK only.
PM outsmarted by tea lady
So, Mr Blair thinks there is nowhere to get a decent cup of tea in London. Margaret Thornby, who has now independently researched and written four Guides to Tea Rooms of Britain, wonders if he has had his eyes shut. Her latest Guide lists eleven great tea rooms in London, nine of which serve an excellent range of loose leaf teas. Her latest venture, tea magazine, has already featured places like the marvellous Tea Palace in Notting Hill where a fantastic array of quality teas are served. Margaret Thornby tells us;
“London has a real choice of places in which to take tea, from luxury hotels to traditional tea rooms to chic delis. New ones are opening up all the time and I really believe the British public are steadily going back to wanting loose leaf tea rather than a tea bag unceremoniously dunked in a mug. Being Prime Minister for ten years has probably meant Tony Blair hasn’t had the time to explore London and the rest of the country to enjoy the satisfying experience of good tea in a quality tea room but I assure him there are places for an excellent cup of tea out there. I’d be curious to know the teas he drinks at number 10 and hope he is a loose leaf man. If he read tea magazine he could, of course, keep up to date and Whitehill Publishing have sent him the latest issue, along with a copy of my tea room guide. Perhaps now that he will shortly have a bit more time on his hands he can discover Britain’s wonderful tea places.”
Margaret Thornby’s Guide to Tea Rooms of Britain and tea magazine is available at:
http://www.whitehillpublishing.org.uk
Tea magazine now has two new features!
- Tea rooms discovered by Margaret Thornby since the last Edition of her tea room guide (Edition 4)
- Snippets of news from the world of tea rooms and tea