For the dedicated tea lover, a tea break with the perfect cuppa is a precious moment in the day. Whether an 11am break from work or an afternoon pick-me-up, there's a whole world of teas to be explored. A tea subscription means you'll never run out (of either tea bags or loose leaf tea) again and can get the chance to discover new styles and flavours every month. They make a great gift for a tea lover or just a treat for yourself to expand your tea horizons.

How are there so many different types of tea available? Tea is made by pouring boiling water over dried leaves. Those leaves must come from Camellia sinensis, the tea plant, for 'real' tea. Many factors can affect the finished tea, including the soil, altitude and climate. As does the way the tea is processed. There are three common varieties of tea available – white, green and black – and all start with the green leaves, which are then processed differently. Then, add to this herb and fruit tea made – no surprises here – with herbs and fruits, and you'll begin to understand the vast range on offer. This is why a tea subscription can be super helpful and makes an excellent gift for any tea lover.

There are two main subscription types. If you know a specific brand or style of tea you like, there can be subscription offers to make this regular purchase cheaper and deliver at regular intervals so that you never run out. Alternatively, a tea subscription can also be a terrific way to try a vast range of tea styles, different provenances, and even rare, floral or herb teas by signing up to a delivery that changes each month or delivers a variety of styles and flavours in each box.

Most tea subscriptions can be delivered to suit you, starting at one month and up and costing from as little as £5.99. Although delivery charges vary, many are free and easily cancelled makes this a fun and flexible way to enjoy the world of tea. Read on for our picks of the best tea subscriptions and deliveries.

Looking for more like this? We have previously tried and tested the best coffee subscriptions, or check out our best chocolate subscriptions for deliveries designed to appeal to a sweet tooth. Check out our reviews section for more than 400 expert reviews, including the best meal delivery services, best baking subscriptions, our foodie gift guide and much more.

Best tea subscriptions and deliveries at a glance

Best tea subscriptions and deliveries 2023

Bird & Blend Tea Co.

Bird & Blend tea

Best for sustainability

Star rating: 5/5

Bird & Blend Tea Co. states that their ethics and sustainability are crucial to them in everything they do. With carbon-neutral, 100% compostable packaging, their tea bags have always been plastic-free. We loved that they shouted about their mission to spread happiness and reimagine tea.

Ordering was straightforward. There are three boxes to choose from: a gourmet tea, a flavour explorer and a caffeine box, and choice of a three, six or 12-month subscriptions curated by their tea expert, Krisi Smith. You can swap, edit, cancel or pause anytime.

Our box had three 20g specially curated teas centred around Valentine's Day. Two were caffeine-free and one was low caffeine. All came in tightly resealable packages and despite our teas all being quite fruity or floral, there was no leakage of scent to cause any cross-contamination.

The package listed the contents of each tea, brewing instructions and potential allergens. Also in the delivery were two free single tea bag samples of other teas: a luxurious white silver needle tea with spearmint and jasmine, and a fragrant Earl Grey with a slight hint of vanilla. Delicious.

Bird & Blend is an excellent value box if you want to be surprised each month, safe in the knowledge that you will receive high-quality ingredients from a company with solid ethics and heaps of responsibility for people, the planet and the environment.

Available from:
Bird & Blend (from £9 a month plus £2.95 post and packaging)

Blue Tea Box

Blue Tea Box

Best for single and rare teas direct from the grower

Star rating: 5/5

Blue Tea Box prides themselves on delivering carefully curated, ethically sourced speciality gourmet tea directly from the grower at an exceptional price; their mini box is just £6.99 per month for three 25g sachets of tea.

There are only two subscriptions with Blue Box, the mini above, and the regular box, which is three 45g sachets and will supply between 54-108 cups of delicious tea for £11.99 per month. The subscription can be a one-off or monthly, with cancellation whenever you choose. Delivery is free.

Blue Tea Box comes not in a box, but fully recyclable plastic-free envelope-style packaging. The plastic-free sachets are resealable with the brewing instructions on each. Also in the box is a numbered printed reference card for each tea with the origin, flavour notes, background information on the blend and interesting facts. We like that they say the best time of day to drink the tea.

Our box had a Hamburg gingerbread tea – a luxury black tea with cinnamon, star anise, cocoa beans, safflower petals and camomile, a tea to drink all day. In addition, a Bohemian raspberry green tea, and an exotic fruit tea with apple, hibiscus petals, rosehip, orange and calendula, which give a strawberry-lemon flavour.

We were highly impressed with this subscription, which is loaded with information and excellent value. The Blue Tea Box is a lovely subscription for the adventurous tea drinker eager to try new teas and knowing there’s an ethical company behind it.

Available from:
Blue Tea Box (from £6.99 a month with free delivery)

Brew Tea Co

Brew Tea Co

Best straightforward tea subscription

Star rating: 5/5

Manchester-based Brew Tea Co are straightforward, passionate tea lovers offering two different types of subscription. We love their bright-yellow packaging, boxes and tins. Brew Tea Co are a member of the Ethical Tea Partnership, the Rainforest Alliance and are a certified B Corporation.

As no-nonsense tea fans, Brew Tea Co have a straightforward subscription offer. There are 13 recognisable teas to choose between, including English breakfast tea, chai, mint, decaf Earl Grey and more. You choose your favourite, then pick a size between 500g loose rolled leaf tea or 100 teabags. Click on your choice, and the monthly subscription price pops up.

We opted for a box of loose leaf English breakfast tea, a delicious brew. The whole rolled fermented black leaves were intact, with no dust lurking in the bottom. The careful blend of a rich Indian Assam and a light Ceylon produced a classic cuppa packed with flavour and vibrant freshness. Great at any time of day for tea lovers who liked theirs packed with flavour but was especially welcome first thing in the morning.

Included in the package were brewing instructions for the perfect English breakfast tea. Brew Tea Co also sell all kinds of carefully designed kit to make the perfect cuppa, including a single-serving glass teapot and a scoop for the perfect measure of tea. The tea subscription is monthly; you can change it as you wish. At any time, you can pause it, nudge it along, cancel or add something extra.

Available from:
Brew Tea Co (from £16.99 a month with free delivery)

Bruu

Bruu tea club

Best for gifting

Star rating: 4.5/5

Bruu is a gourmet tea club where you get to fill in your tea tastes for Bruu to use to decide which teas you'll be sent. Bruu then promises to send you only the finest, tastiest tea, starting at £10 per month.

Setting up the subscription is easy if you read the instructions; we initially misread some. First, decide on how much to spend; it gets better value the more months added. There are eight styles of tea to choose from, and you remove the ones you don't like, plus ingredients you don't like (such as liquorice, caffeine or dairy) and then the algorithm gets to work to pick the teas you'll be sent in your personalised box. Delivery is free and you can cancel anytime you wish.

The subscription arrives in a pretty letterbox-sized box, all of which is recyclable. Wrapped carefully in tissue paper are two 14g and one 12g bag of tea. Clipped to the sachets with a tiny gold peg are recyclable cards with details of the tea, where it is from, why Bruu love it, brewing instructions and the type of tea. However, these cards are tiny and challenging to read if you don't see too well.

Our delivery had an extra single-serve tea bag without details of what's inside, and an information card about Fujian Province in China, which we thought may be a clue to the tea bag but wasn't. Our subscription teas were a green tea called Pina Colada, Rose Amour (an aromatic black tea with English rose) and a delicate orange oolong tea which, it turned out, was from Fujian Province.

Bruu is the perfect subscription for gifting, we felt. It is so prettily put together, and it is quite a thrill to open it with the tissue, little pegs, high-quality teas, and well collated information to help learn about the tea in the box.

Available from:
Bruu (from £10 a month, with free delivery)

Pukka Herbs

Pukka Herbs

Best for variety

Star rating: 4/5

Pukka is a well-known company offering many organic herbal products, with their teas widely available. The Pukka subscription offer is across all types, sizes and packages of tea.

With Pukka, it is good to know what you want to buy, or as we did, choose a tea selection box of 45 sachets to try different flavours – this would make a great gift of self-care for someone or for yourself. If you already have a favourite Pukka tea, subscribe in frequencies from weeks to months, and you will automatically receive a 5% discount.

The gift box is beautiful with its gold accents and separate compartments for each type of tea and one to keep filling up with all your favourites. The box comes with details of the different teas inside and what they hold and makes it a pleasure to choose from each day.

The teas have different uses from relaxation, to sleep, to waking up, and many other nurturing uses but there are also selection boxes solely for relaxation and one for activity.

Although Pukka are mainly organic herb teas, there is still wide variety in the selection box, including a matcha tea. If you like herbal teas, then you will not be disappointed with the variety of teabags in the selection boxes. The quality of the teas is excellent, and all are organic too.

Available from:
Pukka Herbs (from £19.39 with free delivery)

Curious Tea

Curious Tea

Best for unusual teas

Star rating: 4.5/5

Curious Tea, is as the name suggests, a tea subscription for the curious tea lover, for someone who loves to find more unusual, carefully curated tea blends which are otherwise quite difficult to source.

Ordering a subscription is super easy on the website. There are just two tea subscriptions to choose from. We tested out the Discovery Box and received four 10g teas. These had some details on each resealable sachet, otherwise information is on their blog. You can also opt for the Classic Tea Selection, which delivers two 50g sachets, with personal preferences in the selection process and informative tea cards. Both subscription boxes are letterbox-sized and have free delivery and easy cancellation.

We were intrigued by the teas in our box, having never heard of any of them. First up we tried Tie Guan Yin, a renowned, lightly oxidised, floral tea from Fujian in China. We also tried the delightful sounding Dong Ding oolong (a smooth floral tea from Taiwan) and Ashikita Zairai Wakocha, a black tea from Japan.

But it was the Fuji GABA Tamaryokucha from Japan we especially liked. This clear, refreshing tea from the Yabukita tea cultivar is high in GABA, through a special oxygen-free fermentation process, which makes it a relaxing and calming tea to drink. This subscription is for the more serious tea lover looking to find something completely new. They have curated an exceptional range of high-quality teas which will certainly broaden the mind and will not disappoint if you want something a bit different.

Available from:
Curious Tea (from £12.50 a month, with free delivery)

Rare Tea Company

Rare Tea Company

Best for learning about tea

Star rating: 5/5

The Rare Tea Company, as you may have already worked out, specialises in rare teas; those harder-to-get ones that make great after-dinner conversation with tea lovers.

There are seven Tea Explorer packages available from the Rare Tea Company and each is quite different. Read each subscription carefully and your level of knowledge and budget will guide you to the right one. You will receive three different teas and the subscription is for six months, though you can cancel at any time.

We opted for the regular subscription as opposed to the very rare as we felt that may have been a step too far for us, but it depends on your level of knowledge. The brewing information on the tea is found in the tin, but the specifics on each tea is on their website which can be a little bit of a faff, though the information on there is excellent.

Reading the online notes on our Cloud tea was fascinating; details about the name, where the tea comes from, the brewing, the tasting notes were all very thorough. Our other two teas were a very limited-edition Portuguese peppermint tea which packed a refreshing minty punch and a Genmaicha, which is a superior sencha combined with organic Japanese toasted brown rice.

We liked the unusual nature of these teas, even the mint has a lovely back story. We were also impressed by the packaging with the teas foil wrapped and in tins to keep the tea supremely fresh.

The Rare Tea Company subscription was one of our favourites on the test for both the quality and interesting teas and they are also an ethical and caring company with their charity offering access to education to talented people from the tea communities.

Available from:
Rare Tea Company (from £9.49 a month, free delivery over £30)

Tregothnan

Tregothnan

Best for tea grown in Britain

Star rating: 4/5

If you think tea only comes from far-flung shores then you will be surprised that we grow tea here in Britain, in Cornwall to be precise. The Tregothnan Estate dates back to 1334 and benefits from a microclimate and in 2005 they produced the first ever British tea.

Setting up the subscription is ever so easy. Choose from a three, six, or 12-month subscription and you will receive a variety of different tea bags and loose leaf Tregothnan tea selected by them. The contents will constantly change depending on the time of year.

Our tea selection from Tregothnan came beautifully packaged in a black and silver box. The first monthly subscription also has a bone china mug to drink your tea from.

We received four different teas. A small box of selected foil wrapped assorted black tea bags, and a small box of herbal tea bags too. Each sachet tells you the best brew time for each style. We tried a 42g box of their estate-grown tea blended with the finest Assam for a hearty, full-flavoured English breakfast style. We also tried their 'British tea' which is, again, blended with Assam and is their strongest tea – you'll love it if you like a mug of builder's tea.

Each month, the teas in the subscriptions change to suit the time of year. For example, in January expect immune- and liver-boosting herb infusions for an after Christmas boost. If we had any disappointment, it was the foil wrapping which can be tricky to recycle.

Tregothnan is a unique offering as it is the only tea grown in Britain. It makes an unusual gift and certainly is delicious tea to drink.

Available from:
Tregothnan (from £36.29 a month for 3 months, free delivery)

Quintessentially English

Earl Grey

Best for high quality hand blended tea

Star rating: 4.5/5

Quintessentially English is a simple subscription with a one-off payment for delivery of 25g hand-blended teas for six months, or choose 50g or 100g per month pro rata.

Ordering could not be simpler. The drop-down menu offers the weight of tea to be delivered, shows the price for the weight and there is a one-off delivery charge to cover the whole six months. You will receive each month's blend curated by Quintessentially English, giving you the chance to try a different tea each month. Quintessentially English offers plenty of different blends, including herbal and fruit infusions, from a loose-leaf orange pekoe to a 'tea and biscuits' tea that promises a taste of gingerbread with a rooibos base.

The tea arrives in a simple recyclable box wrapped with tissue paper with the tea in a sealed smart paper bag. On the front is the style of tea, and the back has information about the blend and the brewing instructions.

Our month's tea is called 'Winter Warmer'. Opening the packet, we were greeted by a delicious aroma of fruit and spice from the ginger, apple, blackberry leaves, sunflower blossoms, white cornflower and pollen inside. It was so fragrant and pretty, too, it looks like it should be in a pot pourri bowl. The tea tasted as good as it looked and smelled.

This is a terrific value tea subscription given the quality, variety and cost. With such variety, receiving a packet no matter how small each month will be exciting.

Available from:
Quintessentially English (from £28 for 6 months, one-time delivery charge £3.50)

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