Our new teas collections in collaboration with the expert Will Battle

Much more than a beverage, tea offers a wealth of tastes which call on all the senses. Knowing how to select this thousand-year beverage is a true profession: express, describe and nuance every flavour with precision, know how to recognise the quality and the origin to identify the best varieties and the most beautiful gardens in the world… A unique and rare know-how which takes years and years and which requires extensive experience and real passion.

Meet with our tea expert, Will Battle:

Who is Will Battle?

Will is a British tea expert. From birth he was plunged in this field. He was brought up with an uncle tea planter in Kenya and quickly became passionate and well-trained, firstly as a "tea tester" and then as a "sourcing actor". He has 25 years of experience in tea procurement and tea blending. He works in collaboration with the most distinguished tea connoisseurs in the United Kingdom and continues to roam through the most beautiful tea gardens in the world, and more specifically in Africa. He impresses by the precision and accuracy he uses to identify every origin, the altitude and the harvest period of teas along with having a thorough knowledge of the markets.

In 2017, he published a book ″The World Tea Encyclopaedia″ (1) in which he covers all the tea producing countries in the world and advises amateurs on tea growing and making, the origin, the seasonality and the local terroir…

How is our collaboration organised?

Will is much more than a collaborator for our team. Together, we have developed the Natural Origins product range for almost the past 2 years:

he accompanies our botanists in the choice of gardens,
allowing us to discover exceptional plantations giving us access to rare and secret varieties.

He directs us towards unparalleled flavours, blend consistency and advises us on availability and seasonality of his selections. Above and beyond the taste, he completely manages traceability and origins and offers us a journey in the regions and terroirs he is particularly fond of.

As the world of tea requires extremely detailed expertise (fermentation, grades of the leaves, altitude, harvest period…), we are very happy to rely on a famous specialist to source the best origins and reach a perfect balance in our blends.

How will we present our tea product range on the e-platform?

Based on the work with Will creating an array of tastes and emotions, we want each and every one of our clients to have access to these creations. We have decided to devote an entire category to tea and to present infusion plants separately to be able to have available more space for teas and blends such as exceptional teas and unique blends ready to be sold:

Black Breakfast tea
Earl grey
Green mint tea
Green lemon tea
Black strawberry tea…

As the world of tea is very sophisticated we want to facilitate your selections using a simple, efficient, intuitive and clear e-platform.

We have opted for classifying by:

colour (black, white, green and rooibos tea)
tastes (plant, spicy, fruity , floral, sweet, earthy)
size of cutting
but also the geographic origin of the raw materials (Rwanda, India, China, South Africa, Vietnam, Argentina or Japan).

We wish to bring to the fore Africa, a continent dear to our team, for its orignal flavours and its particularly committed cooperatives. These teas from Africa have a limited presence on the markets, but are high altitude teas, pure with unique taste and are distinguishing and will make you rediscover this inspiring and refined beverage…