About Us

Debonair Tea Company is run by Kent couple, Phil and Louisa Johnson. Tired of seeing both good and poor quality tea served badly, we believed it was possible to source, create and serve high quality loose leaf teawithout pretence and set upon our mission to make exceptional tea a daily pleasure.

Initially, our plan was to create a pop-up tea bar and personally serve our own teas and blends but we were soon getting requests to retail our products online and supply other food businesses - requiring a prompt re-write of the business plan!

From true start-up beginnings and a limited budget, we have now created and sourced over 20 delicious yet honestly priced unique teas and infusions with more in careful development. Louisa has also proven her craft, knowledge and love of tea with formal tea sommelier accreditation – the first person to achieve this standard with the UK Tea Academy.

Our name is not only inspired by our high-quality teas and infusions but also by our 1968 Bedford Debonair CA van, which we are converting into a mobile tea bar (Still..! One commercial unit, a dog and a baby later...!)

This blog was originally set up for updates on our mobile teabar transformation which it will continue to do when this work resumes in 2018.

www.debonairtea.co.uk

Tuesday, 13 January 2015

DEBONAIR TEA - PRODUCT LAUNCH

Our initial range of loose leaf tea

 As we got around to writing this post and confirmed that our last update really was at the end of October we couldn't quite believe how quickly the past couple of months had passed.

However, it put us in a  reflective mood for once. As people who know us well know, despite preaching and practicing good service, patience is always not a personal virtue of ours; we always want to better whatever we have achieved so far. As such it’s sometimes easy to forget, in the quest for constant improvement, how far we have come in a relatively short space of time.

Debonair Tea Company began trading on Saturday 9th November 2014 at Folkestone Farmers’ market. Phil was away at sea for the big day but our lovely friends Steve and Tash turned out and provided Lou with amazing moral and practical support.

Despite limited takings, it was a brilliant experience, garnering good feedback on the quality and professionalism of our products and presentation. This was despite just one hour of sleep the previous night during which our packaging finally came together and a frenzied baking session ensued.  

We had been working on our initial product range for a number of months but a firm launch date, albeit without van, sprung us into action; finally our passion for our brand was being unleashed.


Tea tasting with Dad

 We eventually settled on launching with a relatively simple range of 10 teas for both our retail and take-away beverage offering, including a seasonal Christmas tea, which was a big hit at Christmas markets during the festive season.

Over the last couple of months we have covered a lot of ground across South and East Kent – from Sandwich to Tenterden, Bridge to Capel and many others in between.  We also launched our online shop for retail purchases of our loose leaf teas.


Debonair Tea Company at Elham Christmas Market

 Markets are invaluable for understanding our customers’ expectations better and will continue to complement our offering once Debby is up and running. Oh, and on the subject of the van, there has been substantial progress and an update on its conversion will be on the way soon.

Back on planet tea we are currently working on some exciting new blends as a result of customer feedback; we are loving every second and we cannot wait to see what 2015 holds for Debonair Tea Company.

On that note, we would like to wish all of our followers and customers a very Happy New Year. 
Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)