We aim to dispatch within one to two working days, and we'll email you when your order is on its way. After that it's down to your chosen delivery method.

Free UK delivery is sent Royal Mail 48, so allow around 2 to 3 days once dispatched; faster options are available at checkout if you need your tea in a hurry.

UK delivery starts at £1.85 for up to five slide tins, or £3.45 standard, with faster Royal Mail options at £4.30 (1st class) and £10.35 (special delivery).

Free standard UK shipping on all orders over £25. European and worldwide rates vary by destination and are shown at checkout.

Read our full Shipping policy

For hygiene reasons we can't exchange or refund tea unless it's faulty, which is standard for food.

For non-tea items (teaware and the like) there's a 14-day return window: the item needs to be unused, in its original packaging, with proof of purchase.

If anything arrives damaged, faulty or wrong, just email hello@teamtea.co.uk and we'll put it right straight away. Full details on our Returns & Refunds page.

If you're quick, maybe! Email hello@teamtea.co.uk as soon as you can, and if your order hasn't shipped yet we'll do our best to help. Once it's on its way, though, we're not able to make changes.

In a word, quality. We choose our teas for flavour, not year-round availability, which means we can buy from small producers as well as big-name estates.

It helps to remember that a name on a supermarket box often just describes a style: “Assam,” for instance, is a region in India with hundreds of large estates and tens of thousands of smallholders, producing hundreds of millions of kilos of tea a year. So not all Assam is created equal.

We choose the ones that fit our values and taste as they should, and we price them fairly, which sometimes means paying a little more than the supermarket for a much better cup.

Yes, which surprises a lot of people. Black, green, white, oolong, yellow and pu-erh all come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. What makes them so different is how the leaf is treated after picking.

(Herbal and fruit “teas” are the exception, they're technically infusions rather than true tea.)

Read about the six styles of tea

Very little. All you really need is something to hold the leaf while it steeps and then lift it out.

A simple tea strainer basket is an inexpensive, easy way to do it, and it's what I use myself most of the time. It sits in your cup or pot, holds the leaf, and lifts straight out when the tea's ready.

Shop the Tea Strainer Basket

Because it's a better grade of tea. Teabags are usually filled with “dust and fannings,” tiny broken pieces with lots of surface area, which is why they brew fast (and often bitter).

Whole leaf has far less surface area, so it needs a little more time to hydrate and release its flavour properly. A couple of extra minutes is the small price of a much nicer cup.

Yes, more than most people realise, and it's the most common reason a good tea disappoints. Black teas want water just off the boil, but delicate greens and whites can turn bitter if the water's too hot. Every tin has a recommended temperature on the label to take the guesswork out of it.

A variable-temperature kettle is a brilliant investment if you drink a lot of green or white tea, but you don't need one to begin. We also sell simple water thermometers, or you can just add a splash of cold water to bring the temperature down.

One thing worth knowing: letting a boiled kettle stand for a few minutes isn't really enough for greens, it doesn't drop the temperature far enough, so a splash of cold (and a thermometer) is the reliable way to get there.

A good rule of thumb is 1 to 1.5g of leaf per 100ml of water, so it depends on the size of your cup or pot and how strong you like it. Start around there and adjust to taste, it's very forgiving.

(This is also why our tins list a weight rather than a number of cups.)

Always add milk after your tea has brewed. Milk interferes with how the leaf infuses and you'll lose some of the flavour, so brew first, then add milk to taste.

The one exception: if you're brewing in a teapot, it's perfectly fine to put milk in the cup first and pour the brewed tea on top, because the tea has already done its brewing in the pot.

Keep it airtight, and away from light, heat, damp and strong smells. Our caddies are built for exactly this, with an inner stopper as well as a lid, but any airtight container will do: a jar or a tub is fine.

One thing to note: the refill pouch is for topping up, not long-term storage, so decant it into a caddy once it's open.

Every tea has a best-before date: up to two years for caddies and refills, and up to one year for slide tins.

Once opened, it depends largely on how it's stored, and flavoured teas will fade faster than unscented ones. If a tea ever looks like it's caught damp (clumping together, for example), do discard it, as it could go mouldy.

Around 40% of our range is organic-certified, and every importer we work with is a member of the Ethical Tea Partnership, which works to improve life and conditions for the people who grow and pick the tea.

How we source our tea

Absolutely, and it's one of our favourite things to help with. In fact any order can be sent as a gift: just enter a different delivery address at checkout, and add your message in the order notes. We'll handwrite it and pop it in with the tea. You can add a gift box too, if you'd like it beautifully presented.

If you're not sure what they'd like, our ready-made gift sets take the guesswork out of it, and a discovery set is a lovely way to gift a whole selection of teas to try rather than committing to just one.

Gift ideas · Discovery sets

Each month you're sent three different teas to try, chosen by me and tailored to the season, which works out at roughly 20 cups. They come as slide tins, so it's a proper taste of each without a big commitment, and the box is designed to fit through your letterbox. Every tea comes with its notes, so you learn a little as you go and build a picture of what you love. Delivery is included in the price.

There are two ways to join, and the difference is important:

• Monthly: this rolls on and renews automatically, so you're charged each month and receive a box each month until you cancel. You can cancel any time, through your account or by dropping us an email.
• 3-month or 6-month: this is a single one-off payment (it does not auto-renew), and then you'll receive a box a month for three or six months. This makes it ideal for gifting, no surprise renewals, just a little something arriving each month for as long as you've chosen.

Join the Tea Club · Read more about the Tea Club

Yes, and these enquiries are very welcome, we put together bespoke tea for both. See Corporate gifts and Wedding favours, or email us at hello@teamtea.co.uk.