Ordering Tea Online – Whittard of Chelsea

I’m a massive tea fan. Although I have been drinking loose leaf from the supermarket recently, I fancied treating myself to something a bit more special. I headed over to Whittard and took at look at their selection of loose leaf teas and to see what other goodies they had.

Tea 101

There are loads of teas out there but really you need to know about 4 different types.

Black Tea

This is your ‘normal’ tea. English Breakfast, Assam, Darjeeling, and Ceylon are all ‘black’ teas. Although they are all under the ‘black tea’  heading they can have very different flavour profiles. Don’t be scared trying them but do appreciate they some will taste very different to the type of tea you probably drink.

Green Tea

You may have tried Jasmine tea – this is a green tea. Others you may have heard of are ‘Gunpowder’ or Matcha. There is often all sorts of claims about the health benefits  of ‘Green’ tea however they never seem to be substantiated so don’t read too much into them.

White Tea

Currently there is no formal definition for white tea. All three of these teas (Black/Green/White) come from the same plant – Camellia Sinensis –  but it is their preparation that separates them. White tea is characterised by its light flavour profiles compared to the other tea.

Fruit Tea

I’m not a fan of fruit teas but people do enjoy drinking them. Where there are such lovely other teas out there, why not have a hot Ribena or Summer Fruits squash? You’ll probably get more servings and they will be cheaper!

Quick Quality Check

Although not perfect, a good guide on the quality of the tea you are drinking is the size of the leaves. If you’ve ever found a torn teabag in your tea caddy then you’ll know that teabags contain what looks like dust. If you compare a loose-leaf tea to this you’ll instantly see the difference in size of the leaves.

Whittard of Chelsea

I’ve tried a few of Whittard’s teas before and so I thought I’d head to their website and order some more. I knew I wanted some English Breakfast Tea but I did want to try something else. What to choose?

I felt like I wanted some Assam to see how it compared to the English Breakfast Tea. As luck would have it there were 2 different Assams to try – the Tippy Assam and the Assam TGFOP1 2nd Flush. There wasn’t a huge difference in price – 50p – so I decided to get one of each and that would complete my triumvirate of teas.

Special Bonus

At the time of ordering they were offering a free packet of biscuits if you spent more than £20. I chose the Chocolate and Orange biscuits as I love chocolate and orange! Whittard of Chelsea value these at £8 but you would probably be happy paying £2.50-£3 if they were in the supermarket. They do come in a lovely tin!

Check out My Whittard Unboxing Video

I recorded a video of me unboxing my Whittard tea. You can see it below.

The Reverend’s Final Thought

In this day and age of desiring everything in an instant, there is some pure pleasure to be had by slowing down and appreciating the good stuff. 100g of loose leaf tea should give you about 50 cups. Spending a bit more on a cup of tea (16 pence per cup for English Breakfast Tea from Whittard) and making it more of a ritual of the preparation should increase you appreciation of it. There is nothing wrong with tea bags but like the difference between value food stuffs and higher quality foods, you can taste the difference. Try as many different teas as you can and buy the ones you like. If you go to a ‘proper’ tea shop then you can often ask them to make some up for you to taste. I would also suggest you ask people for recommendations – tell them you like ‘x’ and what can they recommend.

Tea! Its the best!

Check out this blog post when I visited a Coffee shop (with cats!)