TF Tea Cup Championships 2021
Pukka Elegant English Breakfast vs Teapigs Everyday Brew
It’s the semi-finals of the Tea Fancier Tea Cup championships, and the competition is really hotting up. There are 4 teamongers left in the championship: Pukka, Teapigs, Whittard and Bird & Blend. Today we see Pukka Elegant English Breakfast and Teapigs Everyday Brew face one another on the pitch.
Pukka
Pukka continues to be a marvellous flavoursome tea that is a pleasure to drink. Pukka really do hide their ‘normal tea’ blending prowess under a (tea) bushel. Their website name is pukkaherbs.com and their social media handles all have the word ‘herb’ in them as well.
They certainly give the impression that they’re entirely a herbal tisane-focused teamongery. I mean, you could argue that Camellia sinensis is technically a herb, I suppose and therefore one might sell black tea as a subset of herbal tea, but nobody else does.
Normally, teamonger websites give the user the opportunity to browse for items under ‘tea type’ like black, green, and herbal nonsenses. Pukka is having none of that. You can however filter teas searches by ‘relaxed’, ‘cleansing’, ‘mood’ and ‘wellness’.
Their website also offers a quiz to determine which Dosha you are. Doshas are Ayurvedic energy patterns, consisting of Vata (air), Kapha (earth and water) and Pitta (fire), not unlike the Western mediaeval system of humours. I’m a Vata-Kapha blend apparently. I expected them to go on to recommend some teas based on my Dosha type, but they didn’t.
I doubt they would have recommended Elegant English Breakfast anyway, because for some reason they seem determined to keep quiet about it. They also make a proper-tea based Earl Grey, but don’t tell them I told you.
Teapigs
When I posted a review of Teapigs on Instagram earlier in this competition, someone commented that Teapigs are part of Tetley. Further investigation has revealed that Teapigs and Tetley are owned by the same parent company, Tata Consumer Products, who also make Tata tea, which is apparently the most popular tea in India.
(Tata also owns. Good Earth Vitax And Joekels tea thus kind of ruining the whole alliterative ‘T’ thing they had going on in the previous paragraph.)
The link between the two was revealed by a Channel 4 documentary, ‘Super Shoppers’ a few years ago, as detailed in this Daily Mail article. And yes, I know I should know better than to link to the Daily Mail, but where else am I going to find these amounts of frothing faux outrage? The article stupidly compares the cost of Teapigs tea bags to the cost of Tetley’s as though sharing a company director automatically means that these products are identical. (Presumably the Mail also thinks that Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut is indistinguishable from Miracle Whip pretendy-mayonnaise, given that both these products are owned by Mondelez.)
It’s disappointing news, I suppose, if you are harbouring the belief that Teapigs is a plucky little startup, rather than something that is, and always has been, 100% owned by a multinational conglomerate. It’s a bit like a company going on Dragon’s Den, and then giving a dragon 100% of their business idea, rather than haggling around 10%.
But interesting as this diversion is, it really makes no difference to what we’re interested in here at the Tea Fancier Tea Cup Championships, which is the quality and taste of the tea.
Teapigs large leaf blends are spectacularly good. This is tea that takes itself seriously, and it’s quite right to do so. I’m reluctant to use the term ‘lovingly made’ because realistically, who knows the mental state of a teamonger, they might be really pissed off about some stuff, but to hell with it. It tastes like it was made with love.
This is tea that reminds you why you love tea in the first place. So despite a very strong performance by Pukka, Teapigs are the very worthy winners here. Teapigs, you are through to the final.
