At The English Tearoom, we are guided by our values in every decision we make. We love meeting customers in our shop in Stuttgart, but as the trend turns to more online than personal shopping our aim is to balance the “order today, get it tomorrow world” with the peace and tranquility to be found in living in the moment. Drinking tea is a daily ritual and the quality of the tea you choose for that ritual will affect the quality of your day. As serious purveyors of tea, our task is to select teas for you that meet our own very high standards. Safe in the knowledge that we do the background work, we encourage you to take time to explore our selection, be adventurous in your choices and to cherish every sip.
Our customers are the heart of our business. We are genuinely only happy if you are happy. Our prices are fair, our products are the best we can find and we will not promise what we cannot deliver. If we make a mistake with an online order we will do everything we can to put it right and restore your confidence. In the unlikely event that you are unhappy with our service or a product you have bought from us we really want to know about it and implore you to contact us.
The artisan tea growers, larger producers and suppliers we work with, are key to our business. We value the close relationships we have with them as much as those with our customers. Before Covid we would visit them regularly. It is thanks to them that we were able to maintain our supply of rare, artisanal teas even during Covid. On our product pages we share details of the tea gardens, production dates and much more. If a tea is a blend (blended in Germany) we will tell you the date it was blended.
People new to high-quality loose-leaf tea are sometimes surprised by our “high” prices. Tea connoisseurs and experts sometimes comment on our “reasonable” prices. All of our customers comment on the high quality of our tea and say that there is no comparison with those available in supermarkets or from large brands.
We do not participate in seasonal sales. However, each month we offer featured items that are discounted for a limited time (“promo”) and occasionally we reduce items that are to be discontinued. You can find details of these offers in the “Featured Products” section on our start page.
The prices of our teas reflect the quality of the tea and that the workers involved in making the tea have been paid and treated fairly.
Teas featuring the word “Organic” / “Bio” in the heading or showing the green organic symbol have been certified as organic by a certifying agency, in our case AB-Cert (DE-ÖKO-006). As we are certified only to sell organic products and not to import them, we are not allowed to sell the teas that we import directly as organic teas, regardless of whether they come from an organic garden or not. A copy of our certificate showing that we are certified to sell organic products can be downloaded here.
This is a tricky one. More and more of our business is online, which means more shipping. We want customers to enjoy our “rare”, direct import teas as fresh as they can be, so we have them sent by air freight. Before Covid we would undertake the long flights to visit our tea producers regularly.
During Covid we realized we can rely on our network of friends in tea producing countries to select the best teas for us without us being there. Due to this experience, we made the decision to reduce our tea related travels to only what is strictly necessary, for example when we want to explore new sources and opportunities.
In terms of our day to day impact on the environment we continually strive to improve our choices. While we try to only use renewable, recycled, biodegradable and/or low-impact materials we also need to ensure that the packaging we use will keep your tea fresh and protect your goods while in transit. The boxes we use for shipping are made from sustainable sources and when we ship fragile items, we recycle packaging we have received from the producers.
Customers who visit us in person are encouraged to bring back their bags or bring their own caddies for a refill.
Giving back to the community has been part of our ethos from the beginning. In addition to various ad hoc small donations, through a monthly donation to the project Mädchenschule Khadigram we support the education of children in India. Through a direct donation to Glenburn Tea Estate & Boutique Hotel in Darjeeling we pay the annual boarding school fees for Rythem and Mathima, whose parents work in the tea garden. By donating tea to Café Natan in Stuttgart we help the organisation STELP continue its good work.
* Prices inclusive of VAT. Prices do not include shipping costs
EU Organic Certification through ABCert (DE-ÖKO-006)
Call us during opening hours on + 49 (0) 711 518 74 006 or email us using the form below. We will get back to you as soon as we can.
