October 2026 News

We are very happy to introduce our new tea range. Well, we say ‘new’, but we have been selling tea on and off now for over 30 years.

In the UK, tea is one of the most under-valued grocery items you can find. A quick online search today tells us supermarkets are selling a box of 80 teabags for just 82p.

When you consider the long-term planning and care of tea bushes, the back-breaking work that goes into picking and processing, transport costs, packaging costs and shareholder margins, all of which are only ever increasing, there is one group of people we assume is losing out here: the people with the least power in the chain… the tea pickers.

Tea pickers generally work on tea plantations where they depend on owners and management for every aspect of their lives, and ethical certifications don’t necessarily change that.

At Equal Exchange, we bring tea from smallholder farmers and workers who own their tea gardens to the UK marketplace, and we want to share information with consumers about the realities of the tea industry.

For a nation proudly built on tea, we don’t often consider what it takes to bring us our life-enhancing favourite hot drink. Equal Exchange is prepared to do the hard work without compromising on quality.

We work with producers such as Potong Tea Garden in Darjeeling, India. Once a colonial plantation, it was eventually abandoned by its owners. Facing destitution, the workers organised to run the garden collectively and democratically. It now supports 350 workers and their families.

Trying to change a broken system that is deeply embedded is very hard, but with your support, we hope to show that there is a different way of trading.

Join us in taking back our food system.

You can find Equal Exchange organic farily traded tea exclusively online at equalexchange.co.uk.

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