TWG Tea has launched a London flagship in Leicester Square.
Inside, the TWG flagship are tables laden with colourful cannisters of the company’s teas, including London Breakfast, Paris Breakfast (with candied spices), Russian Breakfast (Georgian smoky tea with bergamot); afternoon and evening blends like the Orient Express (black tea with wild berries) or Longevity tea, with white leaves; fun blends such as Silver Moon (green tea with berry and vanilla), Emerald River (green with Burma fruits) and the White House (with fruits and roses).
There are also teas for the connoisseur: the rare first-flush and the white Darjeelings, Chinese Yellow teas, once a drink for emperors, the white Yin Zhen, and blue tea. Prices range up to £1300 for 100g. All up, there are about 800 teas in this branch. In the company’s other, smaller new shop on Brompton Road, opposite Harrods, there are 600.
Tea can be imbibed from breakfast through to dinner in the tea-salon-cum-restaurant upstairs. This is a grand Chinese room, with tea-leaf shapes on the ceiling and red lacquer panelling. At the back, there is a museum of tea artefacts, from Russian samovars to old dragon-wreathed Chinese teapots and chests.
As well as teas there are tea-flavoured biscuits and patisserie and ice cream. “We don’t want it just to be about afternoon tea,” says TWG co-founder Maranda Barnes. “We want it to be for every time of day, for everything you do. I was 18 before I started drinking tea. I have it with my girlfriends when I want to unwind, when I want to celebrate, when I want to get myself going. I want everyone to feel that there’s a tea for them. I don’t want it to be stuffy and intimidating.”
Waiters recommend teas to go with the food, but there is also tea in the food … macha salt on the French fries, Sencha tea and popped rice on the butter and tea leaves in the bread, macha beurre blanc in the Norwegian salmon sauce and the Sakura! Sakura! Tea in the sorbet that goes with the Bain de Rose dessert.