Newby Teas

Newby Teas was founded in 2000 by Nirmal Sethia, a Master Tea Taster who began working in tea at 14 and returned to the category decades later, after building a separate business career, specifically to raise its standards. The company is substantially owned by the N. Sethia Foundation, a British-registered charity, so its profits route back into charitable work rather than private return alone — an unusual ownership structure for a luxury goods brand.

Newby sources from Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade certified gardens and runs a carbon-neutral Preservation Centre in Kolkata, putting environmental and sourcing standards on the production side rather than treating them as retail messaging. The brand is served in hotels including the Mandarin Oriental, Aman, JW Marriott and Belmond properties, and sold through Harrods and Selfridges, alongside its own boutiques in London and Gstaad.

One further detail sets it apart from most tea houses: Newby maintains the Chitra Collection, close to 2,000 pieces of historic teaware described as the world's largest such collection in private hands — a museum-scale archive sitting behind a company that still calls itself, plainly, in the business of good tea.