Yorkshire Tea has been growing in popularity exceptionally fast in New Zealand and is available in Supermarkets, Costco, and other specialty retailers.

The Yorkshire Tea History

Yorkshire Tea is made by Taylors of Harrogate, a third generation Yorkshire family business born in 1886.

Charles Taylor

The first pot of Yorkshire Tea was brewed in the 1970s - but their story starts way back in 1886, when a man named Charles Taylor and his two sons set up a tea and coffee company. By buying the best, and carefully blending to suit the local water, C. E. Taylors & Sons became known for quality – winning a gold medal at the London Grocery Exhibition in 1896.

Top quality teas

Every day, tea growers and auctioneers from around the world wrap their best teas in little parcels and post them to Pagoda House, Harrogate – Yorkshire Tea’s home for more than 40 years.

Tasting

Mo from their Tea Tasting Room team, with Head of Tea, Ian.

When those tea samples arrive, their buyers set them in long rows, carefully slurping and assessing Assams, Darjeelings and Ceylons in their hundreds. In fact, they often taste up to a thousand teas a day. And of course, they’re very rigorous in how they test our teas before they leave the building, tasting every batch with and without milk, and in hard and soft water, to make sure it’s always perfect.

Tea Buyer Training

Tea buyer Will visiting Rwanda as part of his training.

And if that sounds like a dream job, it doesn’t mean it’s an easy one. It takes years of training, tasting and travelling the world before their trainee tea buyers get to drop the 'trainee' from their titles – and they never stop learning. Professional taste buds really are a serious business.

Building sustainable relationships

All their tea buyers regularly travel to visit the estates and gardens that grow their tea, and have a genuine rapport with their suppliers - because when they work with people, they want the way they trade to be honest, fair and sustainable. They always work to build strong, long-term relationships with these producers and their communities – over years, sometimes decades – because they want to keep making a positive difference to the quality of their teas and to the lives of the people who grow them.

Trading responsibly

A photo from one of their key suppliers, Ngere Tea Factory in Kenya.

The company aims to pay fair, sustainable prices and work together with all of their suppliers to improve social and environmental standards. They’re proud to say that their commitment to trading responsibly has led to them being named a Sustainable Standards Setter by the Rainforest Alliance and earned them a Royal Warrant in 2015, as an official supplier to the Prince of Wales.

To learn more about Yorkshire Tea, visit www.yorkshiretea.co.uk

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