Here’s our handy guide to making the perfect cup of tea.

You can find it in all the major supermarkets, or buy online from us or Amazon. If the tea you’re after is ever out of stock in your local shop, it might just be because more people than expected have bought it in a short time – and when that happens, we’ll always be trying to get more stock out behind the scenes, so do keep checking back.

We’re really sorry, but because we run a busy working factory, we’re not set up for public visits and we don’t have a shop. But, if you’re ever in Harrogate (or York, Ilkley or Northallerton), you absolutely have to visit Bettys, which is our sister company.

We’ve popped packaging details for each product on its own product page – head there using the menu at the top.

We use bleached wood pulp, which makes up about 43% of the tea bag paper. Unbleached wood pulp contains something called lignin, and some people find the taste a bit funny – plus, lighter paper makes it easier to spot manufacturing defects.

After ours is treated, the wood pulp goes through a washing process – and it’s independently tested every year to make sure that it’s compliant with Food Contact Material regulations, safe for use with hot drinks, and that no substances are released which could endanger health.

In the past, some tea bag bleaching processes used elemental chlorine, which led to dioxins being formed. That was banned in 1989, and modern bleaching methods were developed.

Store it in a cool, dry place away from moisture and sunlight. And if you can, keep it away from strong-smelling products like spices, garlic or detergents, so it doesn’t absorb those flavours.

100% black tea from Africa and India.

100% black tea from Kenya, Rwanda and Assam.

Yorkshire Tea is a black tea blend made with teas from a few different countries in Africa (including Kenya and Rwanda) and Assam in India.

Yorkshire Gold is a black tea blend made with teas only from our favourite tea gardens in Kenya, Rwanda and Assam, and it has a higher proportion of Assam in the blend than Yorkshire Tea. Flavour-wise, our tea buyers would describe Yorkshire Gold as a little more ‘smooth’ and ‘brisk’ than Yorkshire Tea.

Biscuit Brew is made up of regular Yorkshire Tea (black tea from Africa and India) with added biscuit flavour granules, made from natural flavouring.

Bedtime Brew is made from Yorkshire Tea Decaf (black tea from Africa) with lemon balm (17%), lemongrass (8%), nutmeg (3%) and granules containing natural vanilla flavouring (2%).

It’s a secret! As in, a trade secret – companies keep recipes like this under their hats so nobody copies them.

The flavouring is natural, vegan, gluten free, free from artificial sweeteners and doesn’t contain any of the 14 known allergens that have to be declared legally on food packaging.
It also contain a very small amount of sugar (not artificial sweeteners), as well as a small amount of maltodextrin and dextrose to carry the flavour. It amounts to less than 0.2g of sugar per 200ml mug.

But what even is a ‘natural flavouring’, and what does the ingredients list on the box mean when it says ‘Natural With Other Natural Flavourings’?

All foods can be broken down into chemical compounds, and some of those create flavour and aroma. Once you get down to that level, you find compounds in some fruits and vegetables that taste like other things. You can then combine them to make something that (for example) tastes like biscuits, but isn’t made from actual biscuits. That process makes an ingredient that’s referred to as ‘Natural With Other Natural Flavourings’.

• Short answer

On average, a 200ml mug of black Yorkshire Tea brewed for 5 minutes has about 48mg of caffeine in it.

• Long answer

The dry leaves in a single Yorkshire Tea bag contain about 95mg of caffeine, but only about half of that is extracted into the water for an average brew. And the amount extracted varies depending on a few things, like how much water you use and how long you brew the tea for. Plus, there’s a bit of variation from leaf to leaf, so their natural caffeine content can differ a little bit, too. All of which is to say: every cup won’t have exactly 48mg, but that’s a very rough guide.

On average, a 200ml mug of Yorkshire Tea Decaf – brewed for 5 minutes – has about 1.5mg to 2mg of caffeine in it. It’s pretty much impossible to remove every single bit of caffeine, but the amount left is so small that it’s technically classed as negligible.

When we created our decaf, we tried all the decaffeination methods. We settled on one that uses a solvent called Methylene Chloride. Unlike the other methods, it’s very good at removing caffeine without removing the parts of the leaves that make the tea taste nice.

It’s safe (otherwise we wouldn’t use it) and it’s used by all the major UK tea companies. It’s also used in brewing and as part of the outer coating on various pills and tablets. Find out more about decaffeination (if you’re interested) in our in-depth guide.

• Short answer

On average, a 200ml mug of black Yorkshire Gold brewed for 5 minutes has about 43mg of caffeine in it.

• Long answer

The dry leaves in a single Yorkshire Gold tea bag contain about 80mg of caffeine, but only about half of that is extracted into the water for an average brew. And the amount extracted varies depending on a few things, like how much water you use and how long you brew the tea for. Plus, there’s a bit of variation from leaf to leaf, so their natural caffeine content can differ a little bit, too. All of which is to say: every cup won’t have exactly 43mg, but that’s a very rough guide.

Yes, the whole range is gluten free.

Malty Biscuit Brew (and also Caramelised Biscuit Brew and Bedtime Brew) contains less than 4 Kcal per 100ml serving when brewed.

Those calories are down to the natural flavourings, which contain a very small amount of sugar (not artificial sweeteners) plus maltodextrin and dextrose to carry the flavour. It amounts to less than 0.2g of sugar per 200ml mug.

P.S. Adding milk or sugar to your brew increases the calories, of course!

At the moment our decaf comes in boxes of 40, 80 and 160 tea bags. We’ve given lots of thought to making bigger sizes (because more and more people are drinking decaf tea), but the size of the market is still a bit too small for shops to be interested in buying and stocking bigger packs from us.

If you’re wondering why we don’t make big bags of them (the 480, 600 and 1040 sizes that we make for Original Yorkshire Tea) it’s because those are made mostly for the catering trade. They don’t sell anywhere near as much decaf as they do caffeinated tea, so they don’t need big packs.

Not at the moment – but we’ve thought about it a lot!

The reason we don’t is the same as the reason we don’t make extra-large packs of decaf tea bags – the size of the market is still a bit too small for shops to be interested in buying and stocking bigger packs from us. But it’s definitely something that we’ll keep thinking about, because we have hopes that one day the demand will be there!

We do make a Taylors of Harrogate loose leaf decaffeinated Breakfast tea. It’s not the Yorkshire Tea blend, but it’s lovely all the same.

There’s no separate delivery charge – delivery (and taxes) are all included in the product price. We use Royal Mail’s 48hr tracked service.

We can only take UK orders at the moment. Sorry to anyone further afield!

All our packaging is made from 100% recyclable cardboard.

If you’d like to return or request a refund, please get in touch via the Contact Us form or alternatively, email us at hello@yorkshiretea.co.uk.