When you have your own budding niche tea brand, you want to be able to charge premium prices for a product that is of extremely high quality. Today’s customers are eager to discover exciting new tea brands that resonate with their own values and offer fairly sourced, top-quality, organic and delicious tea blends with beautiful packaging and sustainable business credentials.
Darjeeling tea is always a top favorite with tea fans, and this beautiful black tea is often used to create delicious blends as well as to enjoy solo. With demand for Darjeeling tea always high, it can be difficult to choose the best-quality products, especially with inferior tea leaves so widely available on the market. Being a leading wholesale tea company, here we share our top tips for sourcing the best possible tea leaves that your customers will love.
Go to the right place
India is the second-biggest tea producer in the world, and it has a hugely important reputation when it comes to black tea in particular. India only exports around a third of its tea production; it uses the rest of its tea domestically. The tea we are interested in comes from its own region, Darjeeling.
This tea-growing region is found on the slopes of the Himalayan mountains in India’s northeast region. This area remains the most important in the country and the world for high-quality, loose-leaf black tea. Some of the finest varieties of all are cultivated around Darjeeling, which is a small city surrounded by incredible landscapes. The teas here are grown at 2400 to 600 feet high, and the highest tea gardens tend to grow the finest tea. Therefore, our first tip is to head to Darjeeling if you are interested in sourcing a truly authentic, top-quality product.
Know your timings
It is also useful to know the right timing for the best Darjeeling tea so you can source fresh products. The first flush matures between March and April, and the second crop is from mid-May to June. These teas tend to come at high prices, especially from the most reputable estates, but you can be sure about the resulting quality – and charge accordingly.
Use a reputable wholesale tea company
A wholesale tea company with established connections in global tea markets can help your brand to source excellent-quality Darjeeling tea without needing to directly manage relationships with tea estates. This is important if you have a niche brand and do not plan to buy in bulk. Instead, your wholesale provider will buy the ingredients that you need and produce your tea products to the finest quality, blending to your unique recipe. This approach gives you access to the quality of black tea that you want for your customers while allowing you to buy at volumes that suit your business model and scale up over time with demand.
Remember that when you work with an experienced tea wholesaler, you can access other vital services to the success of your niche tea brand, from consultancy and product development to blending, packaging and design. This will make your route to success far easier and free from beginner mistakes!