Brew News - the Yorkshire Tea blog

I can’t quite believe it’s been 10 years,” says Chris Powell, “and it was all inspired by a child’s imagination.”

Chris is the man behind one of our more unusual projects. It’s our community scrap store, the Cone Exchange, and it has just celebrated its 10th anniversary.

To explain just what it is, let’s go back to how it started.

Chris’ role began when he was showing pupils from Springwater Special School (based just down the road from our Harrogate HQ) around the Yorkshire Tea factory and one pupil spotted a used cone – which had been used to spool the cotton onto tagged tea bags. “She had a vision,” says Chris, “and asked if she could take it home to make an angel.”

Word spread around local parents, schools and groups and the demand for cone angels grew. Eventually they were in put in local shop windows and people paid to ‘adopt’ them. The money raised went towards a Starbeck in Bloom project setting up an after-school gardening club.

“I was really inspired by that,” says Chris, “and it just grew from there.”

It was around that time that Chris’ alter ego – the pirate Captain Rummage – started to appear at school assemblies around the area promoting the ‘three arrrs’ – reduce, reuse recycle and encouraging children to donate glasses, mobiles and stamps to Oxfam.

For a while Chris operated out of a shed at Springwater School, before moving in to his current building near our head office five years ago. The projects the Cone Exchange was playing a part in grew too, with charities using old coffee barrels and sacks to create furniture and bags and mroe and more and more items which had previously been considered to be wasted – from us and other local businesses – being sold through the scrap store.

It was only three years ago that Chris began devoting all his work time to the Cone Exchange and put all his energy into the project, while receiving support from a group of dedicated volunteers.

He’s now busy travelling the country to hold talks with WIs, hosting craft workshops in the local area and acting as a young enterprise advisor – all while helping eight local students with special educational needs to gain work experience in the Cone Exchange itself, producing craft packs that are sold to raise funds for our Yorkshire Rainforest Project.

As well as raising money for that, Chris and his team play an important role in reducing our waste and making a positive impact in our local communities.

Along the way Chris and the Cone Exchange have received various awards and honours. He’s been down to Buckingham Palace twice – first as part of a group collecting the Queen’s Award for Sustainable Business, then again eight months later collecting an MBE. He’s also scooped gold at the prestigious Food and Drink Federation Community Partnership Awards in the Environment Category and won plenty more besides.

“There have been lots of great highlights and milestones,” says Chris. “It’s been an incredible pirate adventure that’s gone a bit crazy, but I’m crazy myself, so it works very well.”

In the middle of a cricket match, everything stops for tea.

It’s a fine tradition, and it’s one of the many reasons we feel such a strong connection with the game – culminating this year in Yorkshire Tea becoming the Official Brew of England Cricket.

And it’s the inspiration for one of the most exciting competitions we’ve ever dreamed up. This year, we’re searching for Britain’s tastiest cricket tea.

Together with Channel 5, we’re staging The Great Cricket Tea Challenge. It’s a hunt for the cricket community’s best bakes, scrummiest sandwiches – plus a signature show-stopping tea break bite.

Our favourite will win a brand new £10,000 kitchen for their clubhouse, and all entrants have a shot at stardom too!

The four finalists will face off for a day of final judging in The Long Room at Lord’s, and the competition will feature on The Test Highlights Show on Channel 5 during the Investec Ashes Series, with the cricket tea expert Michael Vaughan, among the judges.

To enter, just head to our Great Cricket Tea Challenge website, where we’ll ask you to upload five simple photos – one of your clubhouse, one of your club kitchen, one of your cricket tea and one each of your two team members. We’ll also ask you to tell us what makes your tea the best in Britain.

Good luck!

200 tea lovers. Three hours. One train. The result was either the strangest event we’ve ever conceived, or the best idea we’ve ever had.

Either way, it was utterly lovely.

So last Wednesday, Yorkshire Tea commandeered the Orient Express. We invited 200 VIPs (or should that be “VITeas”?) including lots of customers, for a journey into the world of a proper brew.

That meant afternoon tea, tea-themed cocktails, music from the Yorkshire Tea band, a chance to meet our staff and quiz our tea experts, travelling in luxury all the way.

We still can’t quite believe it happened – but thanks to the camera skills of our guests and our own on-board photographer, we’ve got the pictures to prove it did.

Here’s a selection from the day (and you can take a look at a video here).

The golden ticket – admitting one to the Yorkshire Tea Train.

Yorkshire Tea’s Dom with Michael Vaughan.

Blogger Missie Cindz meets fire fighter Steve, who took a team to help out in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, aided by supplies of Yorkshire Tea (you can read about his adventures here).

The sign made it all feel slightly more real.

Louis Tomlinson taking a day out from One Direction’s busy schedule of world domination.

On board, and passengers enjoy a spot of entertainment from the Yorkshire Tea Band.

Proper brew fan Hazel tries on a new hat. Very fetching.

Giles and Kate, beautifully dressed for the occasion.

Yorkshire Tea drinker Sam tucks into afternoon tea.

Jake from Jake’s Bar and Still – creator of the fantastic Yorkshire Tea-based cocktails.

The obligatory arty shot – ain’t it lovely!

Back at the station, this is Chris from Leeds band Ellen and the Escapades – a Yorkshire Tea drinker and a train nut – with a copy of the Yorkshire Tea Times. Guests all featured in their own personalised front page, thanks to some whizzy technology.

The Yorkshire Tea Crew.

What a difference 500 years make.

If Yorkshire Tea drinker Jode Steele and his lovely lady Becca had fallen for each other a little over half a millennium ago, there’d have been an outcry.

After all, he’s a Selby lad she’s from Preston, Lancashire. With the Wars of the Roses going on, things might have gone a bit Romeo and Juliet.

Thank goodness, then, that it’s 2013 – a time of civil peace in which Yorkshire Tea can openly declare its support and affection for the fine people across the border.

(Unless we’re talking cricket – but that’s another story).

So we were thrilled to be invited to Jode and Becca’s wedding, which took place at the picturesque Selby Abbey last week.

We headed over with Little Urn and the Yorkshire Tea Band to serve tea with a spot of music – and we gave guests a few brews to take home as wedding favours.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better day,” said Jode. “It was kind of overwhelming to be honest… it was really perfect.

“Everyone who came was blown away. They rocked up outside the abbey – which is a beautiful building anyway – and there was Yorkshire Tea there and a brass band playing.

“Everyone loved it, they absolutely loved it. It was a real kickstart to the day.”

If you’re celebrating something special, we might be able to help it go with a bang. Please tell us about it here via our Facebook form.

We really like people who drink Yorkshire Tea.
And we like them even more when they get in touch to let us know about sightings of Yorkshire Tea-related phenomena in the wild.
Here’s a collection of some recent reports from proper brew fans.

Tea’ll be there for you

The love of a proper brew is pretty universal. Chances are you’ll go all misty eyed and let out a satisfied “ahhhh” when you take a lovely sip of tea, whether you’re a doctor from Derby, a waste collector from Wakefield or a set designer for smash hit TV comedy Friends.
How do we know about that last one? It’s thanks to our Facebook friend Heather, who sent us this snapshot of a moment from Friends – featuring our old school Yorkshire Tea tin on the shelves in the background behind Phoebe.
We really stole this scene. It must be why we got that starring role in Homeland.

Iced tea

It snowed a bit last month. We love snow as much as the next tea company, but we still do find ourselves with an extra-strong urge to get indoors and wrap our frosty fingers around a steaming mug of tea.
Luckily our trusty tea van, Little Urn, is made of sterner stuff. And his many tiny siblings (which you can buy from here) carry that same hardy DNA. Here he is leaving an urnprint in the snow – and thanks to Clare for the picture.

Mini driver

Little Urn likes to get out and about. One of his recent stops was at Woodall services near Sheffield, where Yorkshire Tea has very recently started being served.
We let our Twitter followers and Facebook friends know that they could spot him there, and inspired a couple of detours as a result. Charley took a diversion via Woodall to pay a visit, and sent us this lovely picture of her son Jake.
“We had a lovely time meeting Little Urn and the staff were so nice and friendly,” she said.
And it worked out pretty well for us too – as it looks like we’ve got ourselves a new driver!

Life begins at four tea

A couple of months ago, Yorkshire Tea arrived on the supermarket shelves in Australia – which means proper brew fans can finally get hold of it at a fraction of the old import price.
It has made some people very happy, including expat Robin.
“Thank you, thank you thank you for bringing Yorkshire Tea to Australia!” he writes.
“Been waiting for a proper brew for 10 years since we moved here, and now just bought all the stock from Woolworths in Chadstone just in case it was a one-off.”
Thanks Robin! If you could just pop into all the other branches of Woolworths in Australia and buy all their stock too, that’d be great. We’d be bigger than sliced bread!

Do you have a Yorkshire Tea happening to report? Then please do get in touch with Yorkshire Tea via Facebook or Twitter – or drop us an email at hello@yorkshiretea.co.uk.

It’s a problem we’ve all faced: you’re craving a proper brew, but you couldn’t finish a whole teapot.

The solution is easy – just pop a Yorkshire Tea bag directly into the mug, and pour over hot water. 3-5 minutes later, you’ve got a world class brew.

Indeed, Yorkshire Tea is beloved by millions for its ability to release its delicious, full flavour in this exact situation.

But there’s something about a teapot.

Our tea buyers always use a teapot – they like to give the bags extra room to breathe, and they like the ceremony, and that reassuring burst of steam as the rich, golden tea pours from the spout.

It is high time this loveliness was made available to the solo drinker.

And so we present to you the Yorkshire Tea mini teapot. It’s just as beautifully crafted as our big teapot and with its 350ml capacity, it makes an equally proper brew.

It’s the complete, traditional tea experience, for those times when you fancy a cup of luxury for one.

You can buy it, and our lovely new big mugs, from our collectables shop. We’re afraid that’s UK delivery only – but please email hello@yorkshiretea.co.uk for overseas delivery requests.

It’s an exclusive, once-in-a-lifetime celebration of Yorkshire Tea – and we want you to join us!

On Wednesday, April 24, we’re taking some lucky tea lovers on a magical journey through the world of Yorkshire Tea aboard the world famous Orient Express.

Departing from London Victoria at midday, we’ll travel in luxury, enjoying afternoon tea and tea-based cocktails and mingling with fellow lovers of a proper brew, before returning to the station at 3.30pm.

We have 10 pairs of tickets up for grabs – and we’re picking passengers this Thursday (April 11), so you’d better get cracking!

Here’s what you need to enter:

- You MUST be free on April 24 and able to make your own way to London Victoria before midday

- You and your guest must be over 18.

- Email competition@yorkshiretea.co.uk with the subject line “Train” and tell us in 30 words or less why you love Yorkshire Tea

- If you can, please tell us the name of your guest

A panel of judges made up of Yorkshire Tea staff will pick the 10 best entries. The closing date is midday on Thursday, April 11. You can read the full terms and conditions here.

Do you remember May, 2012?

Things were simpler back then. The internet hadn’t been invented, there was only one TV channel and everyone travelled by horse.

It was back in May that, undeterred by the lack of internet, we asked our Facebook friends to help us pick some designs for a new range of mugs.

Not just any mugs. Big mugs. Big lovely 400ml porcelain mugs which make our traditional mugs look like slightly smaller mugs.

And now, in the blink of an eye (assuming your blinks last 10 months) the mugs have arrived.

We’ve made two types, based on your favourite designs.

There’s one featuring our beautiful box illustration and there’s another one with “LOVE” in big letters.

They’re available at our online collectables shop (for £7 inc UK postage) right now, and we also have 100 to give away.

Just email hello@yorkshiretea.co.uk with the subject line “mugs” to be in with a chance.

Sorry they took so long!

The closing date is Friday, April 19 at 11.59pm – and the full terms and conditions are here.

Tea done properly is a thing worth celebrating.

And this year we’ve been asking Yorkshire Tea drinkers what they’re celebrating – because they’re generally a happy bunch and we rather like meeting them.

So on Sunday we packed ourselves into Little Urn, our trusty tea van, and motored off to Southampton to pay a visit to the very lovely Faye.

She’s a Yorkshire Tea fan through and through, and Sunday was her birthday. What better excuse for a bit of a street party?

“It was the most amazing day,” said Faye. “My friends were very impressed with your friendliness and hospitality. It is such a change to see employees for a big company to have sparkle and charisma.”

It was a particularly big celebration for Faye, as she has very recently recovered from a serious illness.

“Yorkshire Tea, Little Urn and your employees have made a difference in my remission stage of cancer,” said Faye. “It was like a dream come true – I shall never forget it!”

If you’re celebrating something this year, why not tell us about it? We might be able to help it go with a bang.

There’s just a short form to fill in, which you can find here.

What would you do with 45,500 cups of Yorkshire Tea?

Well, if you’re the average British office worker, you’d drink them. A new survey has found that in the course of a lifetime in the office, the average person consumes no fewer than 45,500 cups of tea (or coffee – but we don’t talk about that).

45,500 cups. Just imagine it! If you stacked them on top of each other… well, you’d have no idea how far they reached because the health and safety dept wouldn’t let you.

There are some other interesting insights about office life in the survey.

Apparently, the average person has 875 small grumbles (“I hate that health and safety lady, she always ruins my cup stacking”); three major bust ups (“I’M STACKING THESE CUPS AND YOU’RE NOT GOING TO STOP ME”); and one office romance (“UNLESS YOU LET ME BUY YOU DINNER, sorry for shouting”).

But we’re mostly excited about the tens of thousands of teas. In fact, we’ve prepared a series of helpful top tips to help your office brews go smoothly.

• Never pour your tea into the photocopier. It’s a waste of good tea.
• If it’s your turn to make a tea round but you’re quite busy, save time by sending everyone an e-card instead.
• Running low on teabags? Then why not put one through the laminating machine? Your laminated teabag will provide no flavour on brewing, but if you’re OK with that, you can re-use it as often as you like.
• Stop other people stealing your milk by never buying milk.
• Kitchen full of dirty mugs? Simply seal it off and build a new kitchen.
• Always wear sunglasses when drinking tea in the office. It will make you seem cool.
• If a colleague asks for coffee instead of tea, have them sacked.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re off to make our 23,567th cup of Yorkshire Tea.