OUR STORY
South Coast Tea Hunters
Inspired by her love of tea, Jo opened The Gilded Teapot, a tea shop in an old tobacconists which has now spread its wings to the New Forest coastal town of Lymington. Tired of the usual mass-produced offerings in teabags, she set out to hunt down the finest loose leaf tea from around the world, and wanted to create a business that celebrates craftsmanship, provenance, and exploration. “I love hearing about people’s first tea and coffee experiences that got them into loving it – be it supping Tibetan tea with butter, sipping Moroccan mint in a marketplace, or a thimbleful of dark thick Turkish coffee. I’ve now been in specialist tea for ten years. The most memorable and truly great parts have to be meeting the growers, sampling the harvests from the new seasons, and tasting something you have never seen before that takes your breath away. There is always something new to discover.”