Every so often someone walks up to the counter and says something like "I don't really know what I'm looking for, I just like tea"... and that's actually the easiest starting point we get!

Rather than working through more than 100 teas at random, we usually start with a few simple questions:

❓do you take milk normally
❓ do you prefer something you'd drink after dinner or first thing
❓does bitterness put you off, are you avoiding caffeine

The answers narrow things down fast, even before anyone's smelled a single jar! From there it's the aroma station that does most of the real work.

Smell tells you far more about a tea than reading a label ever could, so we'll open two or three jars and let the tea make its own case!

Nobody's steered toward whatever's easiest to sell, and there's no pressure to buy on the spot. Sometimes it takes one jar, sometimes it takes six.

Either way, it's less about knowing tea already and more about being curious enough to smell your way there! ✨