The Kettle Shed at The Cutty Sark - INDEPENDENT - ETHICAL

Our weeks just keep getting better and better with jam-packed stuff to help us understand tea that little bit better. This week we went to the Cutty Sark ship on King William Walk, London SE10 9HT. The ship was one of the pioneer’s in tea imports in the 1860’s.

Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the Clyde in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development.

The ship was one of the quickest and diverse ways to get tea from country to country, it visited nearly every port in the world through the course of her working life. Not only did her speed translate into prestige, it also translated into profits: the Cutty Sark brought the new tea crop from China, which was incredibly fashionable amongst the tearooms and parlours of Victorian Britain. The first batch of the new tea harvest was highly coveted and thus the first tea cargo to arrive fetched the highest price.

We were completely taken back by being there and seeing the heritage of the boat that started the tea movement back in the 1800’s, this was the quickest way to get tea the UK and beyond and without it we certainly wouldn’t be here today & neither would the high quality tea the UK has to offer today.

Many of you will know @GlynnChristian from his various books, TV appearances & magazine articles all based on food & more importantly tea. We had the pleasure of meeting with him on the boat and listening to talk on tea and industry, it was very informative and told with huge passion. We are pleased to say he has tried our tea and is a fan of our Oolong (Iron Lady)! Hopefully soon he will write a little bit about us.

We have loads more events coming up over the next few weeks and we can’t wait to put pen to paper and let you guys know what we’ve been up too!! Check out our teas online at www.thekettleshed.com and remember we really do GIVE A CUP!