Tea and Coffee Paradise (Whittards)

Member Name: alocin

Product:	Whittards
Date:	19/05/03 (7626 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lovely tea and coffee, Strict quality and buying policies, Heaven is filled with tea and coffee

Disadvantages: Bit more expensive than your average supermarket prices

For the tea or coffee lover Whittards is paradise. Their 100 shops are a treasure trove of dozens of flavours of teas and coffees, along with handmade cups, saucers and teapots and specialist and home coffee machines. It's just a pain that my nearest one is an hours drive away! Some supermarkets do stock a limited range of their packet tea and coffee, but it is not the same as visiting one of the special shops. As a small compensation there is a website at www.whittards.co.uk where you can order some products over the internet.

Whittards was founded in 1886 in Chelsea, London by Mr Walter Whittard, a man who obviously liked his tea. He had a policy of "buy the best" which continues to be the philosophy of the firm. Whittards has their tea and coffee "guru" Mr Giles, who travels around the world searching out the best sources for their products. The website has more information about what he does, but he is certainly dedicated to his tea, sometimes tasting more than 500 types a day. The tea and coffee is often bought from small local plantations, where it is shipped to London in its original chests. Certainly better than just shoving a PG Tips bag into your mug!

I first came across Whittards in my search for lovely coffee. They do a range of flavoured coffees such as Irish Cream, Chocolate, French Vanilla and other interesting flavours. Not one to dwell on tea much, I just went for these flavoured coffees in my visit to their far-off store on a shopping trip. Then after Christmas I found a Whittards gift set in my local Boots. It was substaintially reduced from it's pre-Xmas price, and had some of their hand-painted crockery. There was a very nice blue paterned teapot and two mugs, along with a tea strainer and 4 small tins of tea leaves. I admit I bought it more for the teapot than anything else, but I was left with the tea leaves to experiement with.

Having only experienced tea bags before it was somewhat daunt
ing to spoon a load of loose leaves into the teapot, and once or twice I did forget to use the strainer when pouring, leaving me with a mug full of floating tea leaves. Despite this I have been won over to loose leaves. Not for every mug of tea, but when I want to treat myself with a nice cup of tea I turn to the tea leaves and to Whittards. I have tried their Original blend, English Breakfast tea, Assam and even Earl Grey (an aquired taste!). Whittards might be a bit more expensive than your bog standard tea bags, or the more mainstream supermarket loose leaf teas but you can taste the quality. Their coffee is very nice too, although I have yet to try their loose whole coffee beans yet the flavoured is delicious.

According to the website they have set up a new store in Carnaby Street, London called the Whittard T-zone which is an educational and specialist shop containing 100 varieties of tea and even a blend-your-own counter! That sounds very cool. I know it might be a bit odd hearing a student describing loose leaf teas as very cool, but I am generally an odd person and another one who is passionate about tea and coffee! The best news is that where I am planning to go to uni has a Whittard shop. Yay! Caffiene heaven here I come!

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