The folks at tea pigs kindly sent me some different teas for me to review on here.

When I emailed them I asked them about whether their tea was fairtrade, and I am happy to say that teapigs are a company with fantastic ethics. Here is what they said:

“Our teas are not certified fair trade as there are a very limited number of tea estates which are certified as fair-trade and we are not currently able to source the high quality tea that we want from fair-trade certified estates. We buy from tea estates which are, as a general rule, owned by large groups and corporations – particularly the case in Kenya and Sri Lanka and India. These are run like big companies and small villages providing education, schooling, health care for the workers and their families, even without the ‘fair trade’ certificate.
Because of these large and well managed investors, fair-trade in tea is
different to coffee and other commodities such as cocoa. The world wide tea
industry is much more focussed on equality and workers rights anyway
(without fair-trade intervention), so to a certain extent the problem of
money not getting to the workers and their families doesn’t really exist.
Fair-trade works predominantly with independent single estates and small
independent estate groups to stop any inequality. At teapigs we understand
that fair-trade is of increasing demand and the sustainability and equality
of where our tea is sourced is very important to us. We are currently looking into having some our blends fair-trade in the future but instead of compromising our quality tea just to have a fair-trade stamp, we are investigating it thoroughly and making sure we make the right, informed decision. ”

I was happy to hear that

The first tea I tried was rooibos creme caramel tea.

The ingredients are Rooibos tea from South Africa, crème caramel pieces, flavour (contains milk). It was sooooo amazing, really sweet, really caramely, just delicious. This would easily replace hot chocolate as a comforting and warming winter drink.

10/10 cherries.

Then I tried the chai tea:

made from Tea, cinnamon, ginger, cassia, cardamom pods, natural cinamon flavour, vanilla. It was amazing. It tastes like starbucks chai, really spicy and fresh, warming and delicious.  Can I give it 11/10 cherries?

Next on the agenda was the spiced winter red tea, made of Rooibos tea, flavours, orange peel, ginko, orange blossom, cinnamon, ginseng root, cloves and safflower.

This truly lived up to it’s name; as soon as I poured the hot water on it turned very red indeed. Again it had a lovely smell, and a kind of liquiorice taste (not strong, lovely) to go with the spices. It would be perfect after a walk outside in the fresh air. I also slept very well after this and am thinking it is down to not having an caffeine in it.

9/10 cherries

I tried the Darjeeling Earl Grey;

It was lovely, light and refreshing. The bergamot flavour was lovely, and it also had pretty blue cornflowers in the tea temple. I love earl grey as an occasional treat, and this was perfect.

9/10 cherries

I also tried the English Breakfast tea.

It was lovely! Sometimes I find breakfast teas can be a bit too strong (I want it to have some colour, but I dont like the bitter aftertaste) but this one was lovely. A good tea flavour, yum yum just what I needed to fuel an hour of work!

9/10 cherries