Britons are drinking sub-par tea - and this family firm wants to change that

Tea might be the nation's favourite drink, but do you know what's really in your daily brew?

One family-run tea company say that Britons are unknowingly drinking tea that isn't as good as they think.

In fact, many teabags are full of tea dust and stalk, rather than leaves.

Birchall Tea, which launched in 2019, says it is on a mission to change the way the nation drinks their morning cuppa.

It says that starts with showing households what goes into their teabag.

But will Britons really give up their daily mug of Yorkshire Tea or PG Tips for a pricier but - Birchall claims - tastier alternative?

We visited Birchalls' Wiltshire base to find out why it thinks they should.

Birchall Tea's managing director Daniel Graham has tea in his DNA.

Graham's great-great-grandfather was part of the early tea cultivation in Darjeeling, India and is buried there.

His brother runs Birchall's sister business - a bulk-buying tea business that ships out of Mombasa, Kenya - while Graham has worked in tea for years.

It might be Britain's drink of choice, but Birchall says consumers know very little about what goes in their brew.

A Yougov survey commissioned by the company found that 87 per cent of consumers said they did not think tea originally comes from Africa, now the world's largest exporter of black tea.

Fresher soil in East Africa makes it a prime spot, as higher altitudes and lower temperatures mean the bushes grow slowly and theoretically lock in more flavour.

More shockingly, 10 per cent thought it might come from Yorkshire or elsewhere in the UK.

It therefore not surprising that we might not know a good tea from a not-so-good one.

Every tea company has its own process, but tea grading means the leaves can be evaluated based on their quality and condition.

The two top leaves in the bud are softer and generally of a higher grade than offshoots and stalks of the plant, which, when processed, can leave dust.

Birchall says that the dominance of the teabag means suppliers can get away with putting in much lower-grade leaves.

Before Tetley introduced the teabag to the UK in the 1950s, consumers would buy loose-leaf tea.

'If you're choosing fruit, you know not to pick a bruised one,' says Graham. 'Back then, you just knew tea should be black and there shouldn't be any brown stalks. The tea companies couldn't get away with it.'

Birchall shows the difference between its 'main-grade' hand-picked tea and other leading brands. The difference is stark, as shown in the picture below.

Birchall's tea is on the far left with black leaves, while large brands are in the middle and of lower quality with more dust.

The lowest quality is a supermarket's own brand that is full of brown stalk and tea dust. The darker and more distinct - or bigger - the leaves, the better the quality, says Birchall.

When brewed, the quality difference is even more apparent with Birchall's producing a golden cup of tea, while it claims the nearest competitor's is far duller.

A blind taste test at British Airways saw it come away with the coveted prize of being the airline's only tea provider.

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By now, though, most consumers who aren't huge tea enthusiasts won't know the difference, especially if they've stayed loyal to the same brand for years.

The difference, Birchall says, is in the taste.

'Tea's not going to change someone's life,' says Graham, 'but if it improves that moment even a tiny bit, you're onto a winner. That's why the taste has to be right.'

He says this is why some brands, which he describes more as marketing than tea companies, come and go.

The company has already collected a long list of awards, including multiple Great Taste awards, and the prestigious 'Leafies' award for the Grift Rift English breakfast tea.

The secret to that taste is in part because of the bulk buying business, which means the company gets 'first dibs on the best tea'.

Birchall has a team of 'master blenders' based in Mombasa, who taste around 5,000 teas. The tea tasters will have had to taste a million cups of tea as part of their training, which takes around five years to complete.

'They really are amazing,' says Dan. 'You can put a cup of tea in front of them and they can tell you which tea estate it's from, forget which country.

'Sometimes they can tell you which side of the plantation it's come from and they can pick up if there's been an issue in the factory.'

Just 1 per cent is deemed good enough to go into Birchall's teas, equivalent to tea from around 30 to 40 estates.

Birchall is in a unique position to offer its quality tea for a lower price than some of the boutique teas. This is mainly because it uses fewer middlemen.

However, its packs of 80 teabags retail for £5.50, equivalent to around 7p a serving, which is significantly higher than some of the supermarket own brands, that are around 2p a serving.

Birchall says there needs to be a shift among consumers to pay more for their tea.

'We really try not to talk about a packet of tea because then you're talking about £2.50 or £5.50 and that sounds a lot,' says Dan.

'You're talking about 7p a drink. If you went to the pub and were able to buy everyone a round for £5.50, you'd do it every day.'

For Graham, it's not just about paying for better taste but about getting the best deal for everyone in the supply chain.

'The person picking the tea leaves has to pick 5 kilos of green leaf to make a kilo of black tea, so you need about 1.5 kilos of green leaf to make a packet of tea.

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'It takes a skilled tea picker all day to pick 30 kilos.

'That person needs to be paid. Everyone complains quite rightly that they're not paid enough, but if you're not paying enough here in your local supermarket, that's part of the problem.

He also points out that the tea needs to be processed in a factory - 'a huge capital investment' - before it's fermented, dried, packed and shipped.

When it reaches Birchall's factory in Wiltshire, it's put into a teabag machine which costs around €1 million, and distributed.

They hope that tea will start to have the same premium attached to coffee or craft beer.

It's an admirable intention, but also a tough ask - particularly as the average price of tea has increased by 29 per cent to £2.64 over five years, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

At the same time, there is a decline in black tea consumption across the board, according to Birchall, and there is concern that climate change could threaten the industry.

Currently, tea grown in East Africa does not use pesticides because the location of the plantations is cool enough that bugs don't like it.

However, if the temperature increases, 'no one knows what it means,' says Dan. 'The concern is bugs, new pests… who knows. It could cause real problems.'

Even so, the tea company hopes that a small shift from 2p to 7p pence a teabag, paired with more of an understanding of what's in our tea, will help.

Their recent growth - 20 per cent in the last year alone - suggests there is an encouraging shift in consumption habits.

More importantly, now that it is British Airways' only tea provider, they can ensure their tea is put in front of consumers.

Birchall will hope that the taste of its tea will do the talking, and convince people to pay as much for their tea as they do for their coffee.