The World’s Most Expensive Teas

A cup of Earl Grey’s breakfast tea may be one of the preferred beverages in the United Kingdom, but the world’s most expensive teas offer a much more exquisite flavour profile. While tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world, with approximately three billion cups per day, the difference between the massively produced product and the refined variations is enormous. Not only does their cultivating and processing method vary, so does the flavour intensity. The addition of herbs and blending of different tea extracts can modify your drinking experience, as well as the price tag.

6. Gyokuro Tea

Price: $650 per kilogram

Gyokuro, which means “jewel dew”, is a shaded, pale green tea, with an intense aroma and specific processing method. Often classified as the unshaded Chinese tea Sencha, these leaves are shaded from the sun for two weeks prior to harvesting them, in order to increase the amino-acid levels in the final product, giving it a distinctive taste.

5. Poo Poo Pu-Erh Tea

Price: $1,000 per kilogram

Yes, the name is as revealing as you would think, since this fermented tea is infused with the feces of several insects. Given that the only thing they eat is tea leaves, their droppings add to the concentrated flavour of this energizing concoction. Originating from the 18th century, when Chinese doctors in the Yunnan region found the Pu-Erh to have medicinal properties and thereby offered it as a gift to Emperor Qianlong, this tea has stood the test of time. Today, its meticulous preparation method makes it one of the most expensive on the market.

4. Yellow Gold Tea Buds

Price: $3,000 per kilogram

Maybe one of the trickiest teas to get your hands on, but definitely one that’s worth the effort, Yellow Gold Tea Buds is produced by the TWG Tea Company and only sold in Singapore. What makes it so special is its limited production: one day per year, tea pickers hike up to one specific area on a specific mountain and cut the superior part of the tea tree with golden scissors, in an almost ceremonial way. After being sundried, the buds are stored in containers in order to release the polyphenols that give them their yellow colour and particular flowery aroma. In honour of the name, the leaves are then painted in 24 carat gold.

3. Panda Dung Tea

Price: $70,000 per kilogram

Once again, one of the world’s most expensive teas features animal droppings. In this case, however, the panda excrement isn’t in the tea leaves itself, but used as fertilizer for the tea trees instead. Since panda’s only eat bamboo, relieving 70% of the nutrients through their feces, this gives the tea a highly defined flavour, one that tea lovers are willing to pay a fortune for.

2. PG Tips Diamond Tea Bag

Price: $15,000 per tea bag

While these limited edition tea bags are filled with the most expensive Darjeeling tea in the world – Silver Tips Imperial Tea from the Makibari Estate – its real value is in the packaging. In honour of the British tea company PG Tips’ 75th anniversary (in 2005), they created the diamond studded tea bag, featuring 280 diamonds, and handcrafted by Boodles jewellery. Talk about a luxury beverage!

1. Da-Hong Pao Tea

Price: $1.2 million per kilo

A valued Chinese national treasure, this legendary tea is a well-kept secret and only given as a gift to dignitaries and honourable visitors. It’s said that a Ming Dynasty emperor was cured by this tea, and so his men went in search of the source, finding only four bushes on top of Mount Wuyi. Although Da-Hong Pao tea is very difficult to find for sale, its whopping price of $1.2 million for a kilogram makes it the emperor of the world’s most expensive teas.

Turks and Tea!

After China and India, the world's two most populous countries, Turkey is third in tea consumption in the world. However, Turkey consumes the most tea if theamount is measured in proportion to the population. Based on data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the average annual tea consumption per person worldwide is less than 1 kilogram, but in Turkey each person consumes an average of more than 3 kilograms of tea every year.

In China, an average of 1.6 million tons of tea per year is consumed, while India comes a close second with almost 1 million tons in consumption. Turkey ranks third with around 240,000 tons of tea consumption per year. When it comes to tea production, Turkey is the fifth country on the list of highest tea producers, at 220,000 tons per year. China remains at the top of the list of producers worldwide, with almost 2 million tons of tea produced, followed by India, Sri Lanka and Kenya.

Çaykur, a Turkish tea production company, accounts for 60 percent of the Turkish tea sector and sold almost 5,000 tons of tea to 54 countries last year. The company sells tea to dozens of countries, including Australia, Kosovo, Mongolia and Saudi Arabia.

A large amount of the tea produced in Turkey tea is cultivated on the country's Black Sea coast. Two months ago, a training initiative for professional tea testers began so that they could better promote traditional Turkish tea, the country's most popular beverage. This was part of a project by the Rize Commodity Exchange Market. The training, which is given by tea experts, includes theory and practice classes that instruct participants on key information regarding tea's color, aromatic features, and the appearance of processed tea and strong tea.

Tea Tasting Party!

Does preparing tea for tasting daunt you? Preparing all the tea for a tea tasting party may seem like a daunting task that few can pull off without ending up with a dozen cups of tepid tea. In fact, putting together a tasting board can be rather simple if you manage your time wisely, pool your resources and do your research before hand.

Drink more black tea

The fragrant leaves of the camellia sinensis plant have been brewed since ancient times into a health drink for medicinal purposes. The best place to find this magical drink is in your local supermarket in the section marked "tea."

Study: Stress free with Tea

Daily cups of tea can help you recover more quickly from the stresses of everyday life, according to a new study by UCL (University College London) researchers. New scientific evidence shows that black tea has an effect on stress hormone levels in the body. 

Does tea aid in digestion.

Drinking tea with meals is a controversial topic. There are several studies that report drinking tea is good for digestive health but some state that caffeine in tea hinders absorption of various nutrients. Let’s see find out if it affects our health.

Black tea with Lemon

Black tea is a calorie-free beverage that contains caffeine and can help lower the risk of stroke and heart disease. These benefits may come from tea's theaflavin antioxidants, which can also help prevent certain forms of cancer. Tea is traditionally made with a sweetener and milk, which increases its sugar and caloric content. However, by replacing sugar and milk with a citrus fruit, such as lemon, you can increase health-boosting and nutritional potential of tea.

Processing Different Types of Tea

From withering to drying, the same Camellia sinensis tea leaf is treated differently during the process to produce the very different aroma and flavour effects of white, green and black teas.

Control cholesterol levels with tea.

Drinking Green tea, Black tea or Oolong tea have been shown to have varying effects on your cholesterol levels. Studies have shown that people who drank 5 servings of black tea for 3 weeks reduced their cholesterol levels by 4% and their low-density lipoprotein (the bad cholesterol) levels by almost 7.5%.

Loose Leaf Tea or Teabags?

Drinking tea should be a pleasant experience,which means that on some level, one should derive pleasure out of that cup of tea. Though it varies from person to person, pleasure can be derived due to fragrance, good taste and a warm feeling when being consumed. In our fast faced world, we tend to chose a hassle free teabag over brewing a cup of tea with premium loose leaf tea. Read on to know some of the basic differences between drinking loose leaf to versus teabags.

Do you like sugar in your tea?

Do you drink tea with sugar? See what percentage you fall into with your tea habits.

Benefits of Black Tea

The early morning blissful cup of black tea is the perfect beginning to a day for many of us. From an ancient medicinal drink to a daily drink, tea has come a long way and successfully carried its tradition of being a beneficially healthy drink. A cup or two of black tea daily can result in some truly marvellous health benefits.

Hydrate with Tea

It is surely the perfect excuse to put the kettle on: tea is just as good as water at keeping you hydrated.

In a study that busts the myth that tea is a diuretic, researchers found it does not bother your bladder any more than plain water.

Question about tea

Tea, which has earned the reputation of being the most widely consumed beverage in the world, has some myths which need to be logically busted in order for us to understand its actual effect on our health. So if you cannot start your day with your cup of tea, learn the truth about tea.

Drinking Black Tea

Black tea is a more oxidized version type of tea and has been known to retain its flavor for several years, when stored properly. It is the most popular form of tea sold all over the world (approximately ninety percent of tea sold is black tea) and several experimentations have been conducted to come up with recipes which are great in their taste. So how does go about drinking black tea?