Postcard Teas

Postcard Teas traces back to 2000, when Tim D'Offay and Alex Fraser began trading as East Teas from a stall at Borough Market. D'Offay's own interest in tea had formed years earlier while he was living in Kyoto, then deepened across trips to Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and China — travel that gave the eventual shop its name and its black shopfront on Dering Street, near Bond Street, where it operates today as Postcard Teas.

Two decisions define the business more than any tasting note. In 2008 it became, by its own account, the first tea company in the world to put the maker's name and location on every one of its teas — turning a bag of leaves into a traceable relationship rather than an anonymous blend. In 2012 it went further, dropping plantation-grown tea from its shelves entirely in favor of sourcing exclusively from micro-farms under fifteen acres, on the argument that small growers serve their communities and land better than estate agriculture does.

For a shop built on provenance as its organizing idea, those two dated commitments are the proof, not just the pitch.