TWG Tea: New Leicester Square boutique boasts more than 800 teas
The Evening Standard's journalism is supported by our readers. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
![](https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2018/06/07/17/180531-mg-1450.jpg?crop=8:5,smart&quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
Right opposite M&Ms and just to the side of the Lego shop, there’s a striking new emporium on Leicester Square. This is the London flagship of TWG teas.
Inside are tables with striking, jolly, colourful cannisters of the company’s teas – lots of them. There’s the London Breakfast, the Paris Breakfast (with candied spices), the Russian Breakfast (Georgian smoky tea with bergamot); afternoon and evening blends like the Orient Express – black tea with wild berries – or Longevity tea, a with white leaves. Then there are the fun blends: the Silver Moon (green tea with berry and vanilla), the Emerald River (green, with Burma fruits) and the White House (with fruits and roses), which give the place a fruity, spicy smell.
And then there are the teas for the serious connoisseur: the rare first flush and the white Darjeelings, the Chinese Yellow Teas, as formerly drunk by emperors, the white Yin Zhen, and blue tea. By the 100g, some are £10, some are £1,300 (and yes, it sells). There are, all told, some 800 teas in this branch. In the company’s other, smaller new shop on Brompton Road, opposite Harrods, there are 600.
This is an extraordinarily ambitious venture. London is, obviously, a home for tea drinkers, home to Fortnum’s and Twinings and the classy hotels that make afternoon tea their thing: Brown’s, Claridges, the Ritz. And still, despite them, this place is in another league, certainly in terms of scale.
![](https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2018/06/07/17/tiger-prawn-squid-ink-spaghetti.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
You can drink them from breakfast through to dinner in the big tea-salon-cum restaurant upstairs. This is a grand Chinese room, with tea leaf-shapes on the ceiling and antique red lacquer panelling. At the back, there is a little museum of tea artefacts, from giant Russian samovars to old dragon wreathed Chinese tea pots and tea chests.
TWG looks as though it’s been around for an age but it was in fact established in Singapore just 10 years ago and has 70 branches, mostly in the Far East. The London flagship is at the very centre of the tourist trail with plenty of young, cosmopolitan people around. Lots of them wander into TWG, drawn to the fun cannisters, the spacious aisles and the sheer abundance of what’s on offer: as well as teas there’s tea flavoured biscuits and patisserie and ice-cream. But for most of the British tea market, the young present a problem; they drink far far less tea than oldies.
I want everyone to feel that there’s a tea for them. I don’t want it to be stuffy and intimidating
Maranda Barnes, TWG co-founder
Which is where TWG comes in. “We don’t want it just to be about afternoon tea”, says Maranda Barnes, the company's co-founder, a bubbly American. “We want it to be for every time of day, for everything you do. I was 18 before I started drinking tea. I have it with my girlfriends, when I want to unwind, when I want to celebrate, when I want to get myself going. I want everyone to feel that there’s a tea for them. I don’t want it to be stuffy and intimidating.”
That means the cylindrical tins of the designer blends are bright and inviting (interestingly, Fortnum’s has just done something very similar), the colours jolly (the main range has a creamy-yellow livery) and there’s something called a Haute Couture collection which changes with the season – the company introduces as many as 50 new teas a year. The staff are all trained, so if you don’t know what you want they’ll open up tins for you to smell, talk you through your preferences and suggest teas to try. “I don’t want people to feel like they might do when they’re looking at a wine list in a restaurant”, says Maranda. “I want it to be easy.”
The best afternoon tea in London
![](https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2018/06/04/13/the-goring-hotel-afternoon-tea.jpg?crop=8:5,smart&quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
So, if you want something naturally low in caffeine for a night drink, you could try the rare blue tea (rich in enzymes so a good digestif) or for a natural high, go for a first flush Darjeeling, which Maranda swears is as good as coffee to wake you up – you mustn’t, she says, drink it after 2pm if you want to sleep.
So... milk and sugar? Neither is on the table and the company wants you to try its teas without either. Once you’ve tried a first flush Darjeeling, though, you likely won’t want anything with it – but with a strong breakfast tea, milk, though not lemon, is ok.
London is blessed, if that’s the right word, with any number of coffee shops but it doesn’t have much in the way of tea rooms, the Parisian salons de the. At TWG, customers can not only try the tea – £7 a pot for most in the range, but there’s always Gold Yin Zen at £125 a go – but eat it too. Waiters recommend teas to go with the food, a new way of pairing, but there’s also tea in the food. You get macha salt on the French fries, Sencha tea and popped rice on the butter and tealeaves in the bread (nicer than you'd think), macha beurre blanc in the Norwegian salmon sauce and the Sakura! Sakura! Tea in the excellent sorbet that goes with the Bain de Rose dessert. In some cases the tea flavour is too subtle to discern; in others it’s intriguing. Try the mushroom soup with Pu-erh tea, the 2000 vintage, because that’s the flavouring in it. (Unlike other teas, this gets better as it ages; it’s got an earthy flavour.) The obvious comparison is with wine, and Maranda says the Chinese emperors always paired their meals with tea.
This place takes tea to a whole new level. If London is home to tea drinkers, this is where they go to play
For more information, visit twgtea.com