Frequently Asked Questions

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Twist was founded by mother and daughter Nicky and Claire because we believed tea should taste better.

We hand-blend our premium whole leaf teas in small batches at Pollards Farm in Hertfordshire, helping to protect the natural oils, aromas and flavour in the leaves. Every blend is then hand-packed before making its way from our family to yours.

Alongside beautifully made classics, we create inventive teas, tisanes and functional blends for different tastes, moods and moments — always with flavour first. Twist has won 21 Great Taste Awards and brings premium whole leaf quality to both convenient teabags and loose leaf tea.

We are an independent, family-run British business, B Corp certified, using ethically sourced ingredients and with a strong commitment to sustainability.

Quite simply: whole leaf tea, hand-blended and hand-packed to taste better.

True tea comes from the leaves of one plant: Camellia Sinensis. Black, Green, White and Oolong teas all come from the same plant; where it is grown and how the leaves are processed create their different flavours.

Our teas use premium whole leaves sourced from established tea-growing regions around the world. We then hand-blend and hand-pack them in small batches at Pollards Farm in Hertfordshire.

We are proudly a British, independent, family-run business, and all our teas are hand-blended and hand-packed at Pollards Farm in Hertfordshire.

Tea itself needs particular growing conditions, so our tea leaves and botanicals are sourced from the parts of the world where they grow best. We focus on quality, provenance, traceability and ethical sourcing when choosing our ingredients.

Technically, only a drink made from the Camellia sinensis plant is tea. That includes black, green, white and oolong tea.

A tisane is an infusion made from other ingredients such as fruit, herbs, flowers, spices or rooibos. Many tisanes are naturally caffeine-free.

We make both — although, like most people, we are quite happy to call them all a cup of tea.

Because everyone likes something different — and no one is wrong.

Some of us want a proper English Breakfast. Some want green tea, fruit and herbal infusions, rooibos, matcha or something a little more adventurous. Others are looking for a particular mood, moment or benefit.

That is why we make more than 50 teas, tisanes and blends. The only rule we really insist on is that every cup has to taste delicious.

Some of our teas contain organic ingredients, but we do not describe the entire Twist range as organic.

Our priority across the range is exceptional quality, provenance, traceability and ethically sourced ingredients.

We believe strongly in ethical sourcing, but Fairtrade certification is not the only way of achieving it.

Some of the estates supplying our teas hold certifications including Fairtrade, Ethical Tea Partnership and Rainforest Alliance. Others are smaller estates and producers where formal certification can be disproportionately expensive or difficult to access.

Our approach is therefore based on careful supplier selection, provenance, traceability and direct scrutiny of the estates and producers we buy from. Our blenders have personally visited and audited many of the estates supplying Twist, and we can trace our ingredients back to source.

For us, the important question is not simply whether a logo appears on the pack, but whether the tea has been responsibly sourced from producers we can trust.

Yes. Our pyramid teabags — including the mesh, string and tag — are completely plastic-free and biodegradable.

They are made from Soilon™, a plant-based material derived from corn starch, with the mesh sealed using ultrasound rather than glue or plastic binders.

When you’re done, put the whole teabag in your council food-waste collection. Under those conditions it is designed to biodegrade in around eight weeks. Home composting conditions vary much more, so breakdown there can take considerably longer.

And the pyramid shape has another purpose: it gives our whole leaves space to unfurl and infuse properly, recreating much more of the loose-leaf brewing process.

We make tea differently.

We use premium whole leaf ingredients and hand-blend and hand-pack every blend in small batches at Pollards Farm. Keeping the leaves whole helps protect their natural oils, aromas and flavour, while our pyramid teabags give the leaves room to properly infuse.

It costs more to make tea this way, but you can taste the difference in the cup. Our 21 Great Taste Awards are a pretty good endorsement too.

Yes — but we are quite particular about how we do it.

Our decaffeinated black tea is produced using a gentle, natural decaffeination process designed to remove the caffeine while doing as little as possible to disturb the character and flavour of the Camellia sinensis leaf.

So you still get a proper cup of tea, just without the caffeine.

Or, if you would rather choose something naturally caffeine-free, try one of our fruit & herbal tisanes or a blend from our Puds Without Sin collection.

No. Our ingredients are 100% natural.

We use premium whole tea leaves alongside carefully selected fruits, herbs, flowers, spices and other natural ingredients to create our blends.

For us, flavour comes first, and we want that flavour to come from the quality of the ingredients themselves.

Many teas can still be enjoyed during pregnancy and breastfeeding, but it is important to consider both caffeine and the individual herbs and botanicals in a blend.

Black and green teas naturally contain caffeine, while many fruit, herbal and rooibos tisanes are naturally caffeine-free.

Current NHS guidance recommends limiting caffeine during pregnancy. Liquorice root should also be avoided during pregnancy, and people with high blood pressure should be particularly careful with liquorice because it can raise blood pressure.

We therefore recommend checking the ingredients in each blend and speaking to your midwife, GP or pharmacist if you are unsure about a particular tea or tisane.