White tea

4 Places to Buy Fair-Trade Tea Online

Fair trade is a tricky thing. I’ve written before about why I believe fair trade is important, but there’s a flipside: too often, fair trade tea is of lower quality to similarly-priced, non-fair trade tea. Which leaves a tea lover to decide between sacrificing quality or sacrificing an ethical stance.

Over the past year I have bought primarily non-fair trade tea, for one big reason: there are very few fair trade tea options around here in Melbourne, and the ones that I can find tend to be in teabag form. But one goal I’ve set for myself over the next few months is to explore some of the fair trade tea options available online. Here are five online tea stores that sell fair trade tea.

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Cyber Monday Giveaway from The Tea Spot

Just a quick plug following on from my previous post about specials on over the Black Friday – Cyber Monday period: The Tea Spot are giving away a tin of Snowflakes White Tea with every order made today. Snowflakes is a single-estate white tea.

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Silver Yin Zhen Pearls by Teavana

One of the things I’ve learned from Michael Harney’s Guide to Tea so far: tea buds are endowed with extra caffeine and polyphenols, to repel sun and bugs. As a result, white tea actually contains more caffeine than black tea and green tea, contrary to what you hear most of the time.

So this morning I decided to forego my usual cup of black tea and substitute it for a white: Teavana’s Silver Yin Zhen Pearls.

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A Leaf and a Bud from Ya-ya Teahouse

This morning I dropped the lid of my glass teapot. It shattered on our kitchen floor. What, pray tell, am I now supposed to do with a teapot that has no lid?

With that out of the way, I turn now to the topic at hand: Ya-ya Teahouse’s A Leaf and a Bud, a furry, luscious tea from Assam’s Satrupa Estate. I’ve had a sample of this tea in my cupboard for months now, and enjoyed it on a few occasions, but decided to take a closer look today.

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White Peony (Bai Mudan) from t leaf T (Review)

Last November, Bec and I spent a month travelling around New Zealand. It was a great time to visit, just as summer was setting in, and we explored quite a bit of South Island in a campervan. One of the things we did often – as you do – was to visit local cafés. Got to support the local economy, right?

Here in Melbourne, I’ve learned to keep an eye out for cafés serving T2 teas or another tea brand I respect. If I’m going to be paying for a cup of tea, I want to know I’m getting more than just a Lipton tea bag.

As we made our way through New Zealand, I saw a lot of Twinings and Dilmah – and the occasional Lipton – but eventually discovered t leaf T, which can roughly be considered the T2 of New Zealand. In Wellington, I found a little t leaf T outlet where I spent a happy half hour browsing their offerings. In the end, I picked up a Feijoa Green as a gift for Bec and a White Peony as an early Christmas gift for myself.

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7 Common Questions About White Tea

White tea is one of the most rare teas around, produced with unopened budsets or the first leaves of the tea plant. Traditionally, it also only comes from one specific region in China. Learn all about this highly prized tea.

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