About us

My name's Johnny or John depending what mood I'm in.

I always have enjoyed having a cuppa. Having grown up in Yorkshire and the North of England I was brought up with a strong brew from pretty much birth.

That's why I made sure our breakfast tea is full of flavour and also can take a bit of milk. I'm one of the ones who does take milk in their tea by the way. Only in breakfast and Assam teas mind. I Wouldn't have it in anything else. I did hear once of someone who has milk in their Chamomile which to mean seemed a bit odd but then that's what's great about tea - you can have it any way you like!

We are a family run company and independent from any of the big boys. My brother runs the Canadian side of the business in, well, Canada. He's who you'll deal with if you contact us over there. He's called Paul. Tell him I said hi.

It is important to me to have quality ingredients in our teas which is why our teas are a bit more expensive than your run of the mill tea bag. Better quality means better flavour to me. 

I've worked hard to reduce the plastic in our packaging and I'm pleased to say that the majority of our teas are now available in compostable and recyclable packaging. I'm not saying we're perfect but I'm trying my best. More information about our plastic stance can be found here.

It's also very important to make sure our teas are ethically sourced. More info on our sustainable & ethical policy can be found here.

We've tried to come up with a good range of teas from the classics such as Earl Grey as well as some more fun ones which we enjoy.

Take our Chocolate & Ginger herbal blend. When we were looking at our range of pyramid tea bags at the start we couldn't have all the flavours we wanted due to the minimum quantities involved so we had to compromise a bit. I wanted a ginger tea and also wanted a chocolate tea which is when the idea of this blend hit me. It's one of our more popular blends and has won a Great Taste Award for the past 3 years too! You can see what our customers think of it here.

So why the name Shibui? Well, we wanted a name that meant something, was something that wasn't common either so everyone would remember it too.

It's a Japanese word and one meaning is a way of describing something which appears simple but has a complex nature. We think that this sums up tea. Tea is just tea to most but look into it and there’s a lot more to it than that.

It also has another meaning which is something that's cool. Old school cool though. A new Ford Mustang is much superior in so many ways to the classic model but that one that Steve McQueen drove is so much cooler. That's old school and that's Shibui.

We source our teas from all over the world, primarily from China, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Africa, and Taiwan.  

By visiting Shibui Tea online, you can browse and choose from over 100 teas and be assured of our excellent customer service.

And if you have any questions then please drop us a line or give us a call. We'll try our best to help as long as it isn't about coffee...