Blog

People and partnerships are the backbone of our business. As Tea Merchants we are part of a wonderful ecosystem of growers, ceramicists, tea experts and of course our wonderful tea drinking customers. To celebrate the launch of our book “Tales of the Tea Trade” on 25.4.19, over the next 60 days we will be introducing you to 60 of our partners.⁣ Stories of all these partners and their place in the tea trade are woven in to the book, and in every turn of the page we hope you will appreciate our tale and share in the joy of the wonderful people...

__________________________________________________________________ KUMIKO KOGA visited Comins in Bath in October 2018 - this is one of a series of blogs detailing some of the insights from her visit About Kumiko Koga [pictured below]: Kumiko is the fourth generation of her family business established in Yame (Fukuoka) in 1938. Her mother is the current head of the company and Koga is next in line to take over. To have two women in these senior positions, even today, is rare in Kyushu and Japan which made Koga's visit even more exciting. __________________________________________________________________ Below is the transcript from the amazing event held at Comins in October...

__________________________________________________________________ KUMIKO KOGA visited Comins in Bath in October 2018 - this is one of a series of blogs detailing some of the insights from her visit About Kumiko Koga [pictured below]: Kumiko is the fourth generation of her family business established in Yame (Fukuoka) in 1938. Her mother is the current head of the company and Koga is next in line to take over. To have two women in these senior positions, even today, is rare in Kyushu and Japan which made Koga's visit even more exciting. __________________________________________________________________ In this video Kumiko is preparing gyokuro, a high grade tea which is...

In 2017 with the closure of Darjeeling I travelled to the Dooars to learn more about this lesser known region.  This area is far less well known that the nearby Darjeeling hills but there is much to be discovered here as beautifully described by the Department of Tourism West Bengal :  "The Dooars or Duars are the foothills of the eastern Himalayas in North-East India around Bhutan. Duar means 'door' and the region forms the gateway to Bhutan from India. ...... This region is divided by the Sankosh River into the Eastern and the Western Dooars. The Western Dooars is known...

‘Milk oolong’ is a tea we have been asked about for many years and one that has a great deal of confusion and misinformation surrounding it. Milk oolong is a Taiwanese tea which has a distinct ‘milky’ flavour. This flavour, however, is so unique that it has created an interest that stretches beyond established tea drinkers and into the mass market. This is where the issues start, as where there is demand there are always those who want to cash in and capitalise, without an eye on maintaining quality and authenticity. In countries such as the UK where many drinkers...