Black Tea Buying Guide

Red tea splits less cleanly than most categories, because it is the least age-worthy tea and the most everyday one at the same time.

What impresses is a named origin rather than a grade. A Darjeeling estate or a Chinese cultivar gives the gift a place.

The trap with red tea is not faking, it is mislabelling by origin, and it is the most widespread problem in the category.

Red tea, called black tea in the West, is the easiest category to buy well and the easiest to be quietly overcharged in.

Red tea is the category where a shop adds the least value and is still worth using, mostly for the everyday tea.

Red tea offers the best value of any category in volume terms, and the worst value at the top end.