Tea was set up with a little (a lot) of help from friends and family, a smile from Lady Luck and some good old-fashioned elbow grease.
The idea for Tea came one cold day in Hungary seven years ago when we (Daren and Suzanne Spence) stumbled upon a tea shop in Budapest. We were amazed by the extensive menu of weird and wonderful teas and were immediately determined to bring a similar concept to London.
Half a decade later, spurred on by our love of tea and the fact that we couldn’t get a decent cup while on the go, we opened Tea near St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Our aim was to make the often complex and daunting world of speciality tea more open and accessible. Plus, we wanted to create a real alternative to the high-street homogeny of coffee shops. Above all, we wanted to celebrate the British love affair with tea.
Building on the success of the St. Paul's Cathedral tea shop, in October 2008 we launched our online tea shop selling the best loose leaf teas on the planet.
We are proud of what we have achieved and we hope that you are as pleased with the result as we are.
Tea and the environment.
Whenever possible we have used biodegradable packaging, and as the technology in this area progresses we plan to become fully biodegradable. We source all of our food ingredients with integrity and only work with tea suppliers with a similar ethos to us. We are currently in the process of becoming a member of the Ethical Tea Partnership.
Our coffee is Rainforest Alliance and our hot chocolate is Fairtrade, as is our sugar. We appreciate that we still have a long way to go but we are heading in the right direction.
