We first saw a flowering tea bloom many years ago during a trip to China. The first word out of our mouths back then was wow! Another wow! followed shortly after we tasted the delicate tea. We knew then this experience was something we needed to share with our friends and family back home. That's how The Exotic Teapot got started. Over the past 9 years, we've experienced this same exact reaction from our customers time and time again. In fact, it's become the driving force behind all our products.

Everything we sell, everything we do is designed to provoke a wow! and enhance the tea experience. We create beautiful, handmade products that appeal to all the senses. Our range of eye catching, mouth watering flowering teas are mostly sourced from small, high altitude tea farms in China. Each one is hand crafted by highly skilled tea masters. Our exquisite glass teapots are all mouth blown from the finest, heat resistant glass. We never, ever compromise on the quality of our products. Each and every one of them must deliver a wow! If not we won't sell them.

The Exotic Teapot was founded in 2007 by husband and wife team, Paul and Nadia Iliffe.

Nadia is a designer, photographer and artist by trade. She believes that beauty and perfection lies in the details. She personally designs our website graphics, our packaging and many of our products. Nadia is responsible for ensuring each of our products have the wow! factor. Whether it's how beautiful they look, how delicious they taste or how simply they work, she ensures that everything we sell meets our exacting standards.

Paul has an extensive marketing background having worked for many years at a senior level in top advertising agencies in Paris, Chicago and London. He has helped some of the worlds finest brands build their businesses and better understand their customers needs. He believes strongly that customer service is the lifeblood of any business. This aspect of our business is as important to us as the quality of our products.

Paul and Nadia are now surrounded by a small team of creative, talented people who love to share their passion for exotic teas and beautiful teaware. The company has an office and retail shop in Bournemouth, Dorset just minutes from the beautiful beaches of Southbourne and Christchurch.

We are a small, independent tea company and proud of it. Over the years, we've been very fortunate to build a loyal online customer base mostly through word of mouth. We do our utmost to keep our prices low and offer the finest products and customer experience that we possibly can. We fervently believe that if our customers are happy, they will come back time and time again and hopefully tell their friends, family and colleagues about us. That's why we'll always go the extra mile with our customer service and our 100% product satisfaction guarantee.

We work closely with our partners in China and around the world to seek out the very best specialty teas, teaware and tea gifts. Many of our long standing partners have become like an extended family for us. We talk to them frequently and over the years have built a strong cultural friendship based on mutual trust and respect. Our tea suppliers and blenders are some of the finest, most knowledgeable experts you'll find anywhere in the world. Our Chinese glass and teaware manufacturers are small family run businesses that employ traditional, artisanal techniques to create our products and share our commitment to quality.

Beyond our core specialisation in flowering teas, we also offer an extensive range of exotic whole leaf teas and infusions sold either loose in tins or pouches. Our exclusive, handmade teaware and tea sets are designed to instantly become the centrepiece of any personal or social occasion. We strive to ensure all our products are luxuriously packaged, attractively priced and benefit from reliable Next Day Delivery. We also offer affordable delivery to most European countries.

Once you experience our products, we hope you too will say wow! and take the time to share with us your wow! 'moment' on Twitter, Facebook or by email. We'd truly love to hear about your reaction.