Hobnail Tea - a concept tea brand whose letters and leaves lock into the headline

Cold brews / Tea cocktails / Leaf sodas

Our drinks

Not a teabag in sight

Whole leaf, cold brewed for eighteen hours. Pick a ticket to see what is in the glass.

Four generations of tea packers, and

Almost a centuryof loose leaf

Archive print of a quayside tea stall with a hand cart and a steaming urn — **1931** The stall

Archive print of dockers in flat caps drinking from tin mugs at dawn — **1952** Shift change

Hands resting on a worn wooden counter in a green tiled tea room — **1979** The blending room

Shelves of tin tea caddies and glass jars — **1998** The shelves

A green tiled bar counter with a brass tap and scattered mint — **2016** The first bar

Three hobnail glasses of iced tea against enamel blue — **Today** Cold brewed

In 1931 Ada Hobday pushed a pram of tea tins along Sallow Quay at the five o'clock shift change. Her sons hung their hobnail boots by the door and kept the kettle on. Tin mugs, wet coats, a cart that never quite stopped. Every generation since has changed the tea. None has changed the hour.

The family and the quay are invented for this concept.

Ninety-five years later, the town runs on a different clock.

But the kettle still goes on first

Every shift, every generation, someone fills the kettle before anything else gets done. We just make sure it is worth the wait.

Dockers gathered around a tea stall on a misty quay, archive print

Somewheretea went soft

Teabags full of dust, sold by the tonne.
Fruit drinks with a leaf waved over them.
Bottled iced tea that never met a leaf.
How does a whole generation grow up thinking that is tea?

Night shifts that need more than sugar.
Coffee people looking for a softer landing.
Quiet tea drinkers with nowhere to go.
Do they know there is a proper cup out there?

Hobnail started as a small grudge.

A fictional tea blender in an olive shirt rests her chin on her hand in a green tiled tea room

Slow handsQuick wits

So what did we do about it?

We kept the old way of buying: whole leaf, by the chest, from gardens we have walked. Then we started playing. Eighteen hour cold steeps, leaf paired with fruit and flowers, bartenders who would rather stir than shake. Every batch is tasted by someone who can tell Assam from Nilgiri blind.

Nothing hidden

Quite simply, every bottle contains:

Whole leaf. Spring water. Ripe fruit.Whole leaf. Spring water. Ripe fruit.Whole leaf. Spring water. Ripe fruit.

No syrup. No powder. No teabag dust.No syrup. No powder. No teabag dust.No syrup. No powder. No teabag dust.

Whole leaf. Spring water. Ripe fruit.Whole leaf. Spring water. Ripe fruit.Whole leaf. Spring water. Ripe fruit.

Whole leaf, spring water and ripe fruit. No syrup, no powder, no teabag dust.

A tall hobnail glass of iced oat milk chai with tea jelly and a red flower

Nothing hidden,from chest to cup.

Five steps, none of them fast.

01 / 05

The chest

We buy whole leaf by the chest from four gardens we have walked, and turn down more than we buy.

Pouringtrouble

Small batches. Big boots. Cold glasses.

Three hobnail glasses of iced tea in ruby, amber and green

A hand holds out a glass of pink iced tea across a green tiled bar

Hobnail isfor every shift

Labels on the photograph: Early doors, Night owl, Lunch break.