Nelson's Teapot

My goodness have you visited the website for Newby Teas of Islington? I know we established that tea is far sexier than coffee a long time back, but Newby has really gone to an effort to bring the point home. Excellent stuff, just like their tea.

From the online shop, what you need to do is go straight to Newby's Heritage loose-leaf tea collection and drop the following into your basket.

Damnably lovely

The Heritage collection comprises black and green loose-leaf teas honouring the 'origins of the world's finest tea'. I'm new to the taste of thyme in my tea, but it is really delicious.

Now pop over to the Gourmet collection of rare and prize-winning teas. As a tea buff, it would be impossible for you to make a bad choice, but perhaps the miniature set makes sense in that you get to try five teas from the collection.

Historic Teapot Collection

Newby Teas was founded by UAE-based Indian businessman Nirmal Sethia. Nirmal is a staunch defender of the importance of the tea-making tradition in bringing out the best flavour from the best tea leaves.

Unscrupulous teabag makers

In this interview he talks about the devastation wrought by unscrupulous teabag makers using the bags to hide sub-standard tea. As he says, with tea it's like everything else: 'Cheap can't be good, and good can't be cheap.'

Good can't be cheap

Nirmal also founded the Chitra Collection. The collection aims to preserve and bring together historic tea-making artifacts, and contains the world's largest private collection of culturally important teapots. You can browse the collection here.

You will be interested to know that the collection includes a small 'bachelor' one-man teapot (top photo) belonging to Admiral Lord Nelson. Dated circa 1799, the teapot was made in England from silver, ivory and wood. The teapot is engraved with the initial 'N'.

Some of the packaging for Newby Teas use teapots from the collection to great effect.