Teas that depending on how long they are brewed, make a great cup with or without milk.
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As low as £9.00Elderflower, roses, cherry, tangerine, mandarin, tonka bean, freesia, Medjool dates...just a few of the flavours and fragrances picked out by our discerning customers in this tantalising tea. It has a sweet 'muscatel' fragrance and I think it is one of the few teas that is intriguingly different every time that you brew it. Its strength is balanced by its light, flowery taste.
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As low as £21.00This tea has such a complex, astounding, rich, ripe fragrance that I cannot describe it well enough to do it justice! I have noticed nuances of honey, vanilla, peach, orange, musk rose, nectarine, quince, lichee among many others. The picturesque Phuguri garden in the Mirik Valley grows the rare and best clonal tea bush variety known as AV2. This clone produces the best tasting Darjeeling but will only grow in a small number of places there. The flavour is as exquisite as the aroma so if you like Darjeeling you simply must try this. Phuguri is a bio-organic garden.
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As low as £16.00This is a tea to savour, whether as a treat for yourself or a gift from a loved one. We use a beautiful, golden tipped tea from the birthplace of tea Mount Meng Ding. It has a rich flavour, like cocoa and rose, almost Turkish Delight! This is balanced by a tea grown in primaeval forests in another province of China, near the Lancang River, that is smooth, toffee-like, with hints of sweet tobacco and honey. The third part has a complex flavour and an astonishing, floral and fruity fragrance. Perfect gift for Father's Day! Or just to say I love you! Even if it's to yourself!
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As low as £16.00Robert Fortune was a tea pioneer. Let your taste buds follow his trail as he travelled on his daring mission to steal tea secrets from China! The infusion has hints of cocoa, rose, caramel, sweet tobacco, 'Muscatel', honey and frankincense, this tea will keep the most discerning palate intrigued for years.
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As low as £16.00An unusual flat, smooth leaf in the style of Long Jing green tea, that is worked by hand in a wok. It grows on the 'big leaf' tea tree, in common with our Tea of Life, in the Fujian Province. A rich tasting, fruity liquor with a lingering aroma of chocolate and fresh raspberries.
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As low as £16.00This is the best grade of the black teas called Fuchow, hence the name 'Monkey King'. You can tell from its appearance with the abundant tips and golden hairs that it will be a rich, smooth tea with a complex character. It is predominantly malty in character with notes of cocoa and according to some of our customers a hint of ginger. Extremely exclusive and a current Imperial favourite.
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As low as £15.00This very rare tea grows wild in the woods of Georgia, near the Mtirala National Park, just a few kilometres from the Black Sea. These hand-produced teas have the quality of some of the finest teas in the world grown in Taiwan and are similar in complexity. The soft, infusion almost without any bitterness has nuances of wild berry, maple, pine, malt, raisins, honey, cocoa, caramel, apple, chestnut and spice. The long, wiry matt black leaves also look like those of Taiwanese teas, the larger leaf size reflecting the fact they are produced on tea trees rather than bushes. Many of these tea trees were planted in the 19th century and until recently were not harvested. The rich forest soil, the surrounding trees offering shade mean that these wild trees produce naturally high quality material for artisan tea makers to express.
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As low as £25.00Without a doubt, my favourite black tea. It is delicious without milk but more so with! This hand picked tea is also processed skilfully by hand to produce its elegant spiral shape. Just 500kgs are made a year due to the fact it is made from leaves that have been bitten by tiny insects. This only happens for a couple of weeks in the early summer. It is the damage done to the leaf and the secretions from the leaf to repair itself that give the tea its sweet, honeylike flavour. Most of this type of tea is made into the famous 'Oriental Beauty', also known as Dong Fang Mei Ren.
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As low as £21.00Only young Benifuuki leaves are first harvested by hand and then stored and oxidised for 3 months in the dark at low temperatures. This laborious process results in a tea that is extremely high in methylated catechin content, which is claimed to help combat hay fever and seasonal allergies. The flavour is smooth, full of honey and floral notes with some cool, mentholated, mineral tones normally found in Japanese green teas. Other flavours noted are apple, quince, raisin, cereals, muscatel and vanilla.
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As low as £17.00This rare tea treasure is from the fertile gardens in the high mountains of Fujian province. It is a new variety of black tea produced from a new hybrid created to produce a new type of oolong tea. The idea was to combine the buttery, alpine character of Tie Guan Yin with the osmanthus scent of Huang Jin Gui. The tightly twisted, black leaf with fine silvery-gold tips gives a deliciously sweet, smooth, exceptionally flavoured drink with hints of fruit and pepper. It is made entirely by hand from young tips that are withered, twisted, oxidised then dried and shaped before the final sorting is done.
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As low as £22.00Prizewinning farmer Gau-Bin Zhan who has won the 'Excellent Farmer' award many years in a row makes this new tea. His tea garden is located in Juhshan township in Nantou County. Using his finest, summer crop 'Jin Xuan' tea cultivar leaves, normally destined to make finest Oolong tea, he has created a tea with a unique character. Jin Xuan is famous for its creamy, milk-like aroma, which complements the rich body and transfers into the flavour with a caramel taste. Hints of honey and frankincense add to the intriguing, complex charm of this special tea. As well as being rich in flavour it is also heavy with theaflavins, exhibited after cooling when they emulsify to create a milky appearance. Jin Xuan translates as Golden Day Lily and this tea is as fragrant as the flower, with a fruity, floral lingering finish.
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As low as £15.00
One of the world's best black teas and one from our range with a deeply devoted following. It is deliciously complex in flavour with a rich liquor that makes it a perfect breakfast tea. This is Lion Mountain's finest offering, although only a very small quantity is made. It has a complex, smooth, malty flavour and golden infusion, with a beautifully handcrafted leaf. A superb tea that can take milk and makes a delightful afternoon drink. Hao Ya is one of China's 'Famous Ten' teas.
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As low as £8.00This Keemun from the Lion Mountain in Anhui province to the west of Shanghai is the next highest grade after the Hao Ya teas. Its flavour is malty with a subtle hint of fruit and its famed aroma is compared to orchid, rose and chocolate, which is also evident in the infusion. A very reasonably priced tea for its high quality.
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As low as £18.00This is one of the rarest and finest of China's black teas, indeed the world's. It is a tea master produced, organically grown, long tender leaf variety from the Lion Mt. in Qi'Men with a light bodied, honey-sweet, chocolate malt infusion. It is a tea with a pronounced flavour yet with very little tannin and makes a good afternoon or early evening tea. It is made with the first golden down covered buds of spring, full of nutrition, picked before the Chinese Qing Ming festival. To put this wonderful tea's rarity into context it would make just 200,000 of the U.K's yearly consumption of 60,225,000,000 cups! Remember this is just the U.K, my calculator didn't have enough digits to work out the world's consumption! We can never get enough of this tea to last the year so try it while you can.
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As low as £7.00The King of African teas which has a medium-strong, slightly flowery flavour and shining orange cup.
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As low as £11.00Only the best will do when sending your love from the beautiful city of Lincoln. Perfect as a gift or drink to celebrate a great memory you have of Lincoln. Even if you've never been the flavour is worth savouring anyway! We have selected five of the best black teas in the world, all from Taiwan, to make this stunning blend, on a base tea of finest Assam from India. The liquor will offer a rich, sappy liquor that is sugarcane sweet, malty, has hints of caramel, honey, ripe nectarine, cinnamon, nutmeg, frankincense, raisin, red grape, muscatel, bergamot, rose, mint and dark chocolate. The fragrance is equally complex, flittering through the four seasons from evergreen, wild, mountain meadow flowers and ripe summer fruits. Lincoln was a Roman city and continued its importance through the Norman era when construction of our beautiful cathedral began. Lincoln continues to grow as a modern city built around its historic buildings and heritage.
