Chic Icon's Elite Tea Selection

Consider yourself a tea lover? At Chic Icon, we introduce you to the elite tea selection to give you the best experience. To have a little insight, we share with you the fact that the history of tea goes way back to 2737 BC and since then, it has been an important and prominent feature in many cultures around the world. It all began a “while” ago when emperor Sheng Nung of China, mixed a few leaves of the Camellia Sinensis plant with some boiling water and had the first ever cup of tea. Little did he know he was opening doors to a big industry…

As we all know, tea holds many health advantages such as boosting the immune system, helping with diabetes, and even fighting cancer, but did you know that in the tea world, luxury tea brands are the ones in charge of sourcing the best ingredients for a unique and pleasurable experience? Stay tuned to the most exclusive ones you can find.

HARNEY & SONS

Harney and Sons was founded in 1983 and ever since, apart from providing as well as maintaining excellence, has specialized in high-quality herbal blends as well as loose-leaf teas. It also produces one of the most astounding teas in the world and has a huge selection of herbal teas, having a sub-category for every category available, and we absolutely adore that. The brand has several collections, including a Historic Royal Palaces collection, a Zodiac collection; which we think is very cool, having a brief description of each zodiac and explaining why a certain flavor suits it, and last but not least, a classic collection.

This brand deserves the first spot in our ranking, because of the high quality it has always offered and maintained, as well as the huge selection available and the accessible prices present. Bestsellers of Harney & Sons at present are Hot cinnamon spice, Paris, Earl Gray Supreme as well as English Breakfast.

TEA FORTE

Tea Forte is an American company based in Massachusetts. It was founded in 2003 and specializes in creating products inspired by the Japanese tea ceremony. Want to know a fun fact? This brand’s Blueberry Merlot won the award for best “Flavored Herbal Blend” and the Lemon Sorbetti won a silver finalist SOFI award for “Best Hot Beverage”, so we encourage you to take a sip of these two winners.

Although this brand isn’t in the market as long as its competitors have been, Tea forte is the definition of a prestige tea service. What we love most about it, is the fact that they have a distinctive and very creative pyramid tea infuser, and a package made out of recycled plastic and accessories designed specially, this is in fact what we call exclusivity.
It has a limited edition of the Jardin collection, which was cured in collaboration with The New York Botanical Garden and consists of an elegant assortment of organic teas. The packaging includes original works of art by famous Belgian artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté who was at the court of Marie Antoinette and Josephine Bonaparte as an official painter. Can it get any more exclusive?

The brand provides more than 80 tea varieties, including Green, White, Oolong, and Black. The brand’s best sellers at the moment are African Solstice which is a Caffeine-free red tea layered with sweet berries and rose, the Black Tea, which is lush and fruity and steep with blackberry leaves tea and the Bombay Chai Tea, which is described as a traditional blend of warming spices.

TWININGS

We know everyone has a Twinings selection in their kitchen, many even say this was the Queen’s chosen one. The Twinings tea brand was founded in London, England in 1706. The founder of the brand was called Thomas Twinning, whose family was in the weaving trade business. Years later we can confirm the brand’s prosperity when Queen Victoria granted Twinings the British Royal warrant in 1837.

The brand possesses an online store along with a vast and complete selection of tea bags, tea accessories, gifts, and loose-leaf tea. It also has several lines of tea blends, like Earl Gray and English breakfast, which are categorized as best sellers. Twinings also offers a vast selection of cold water infusions to offer a more fresh drink. Twinings’ best-sellers are currently the Traditional Afternoon, Lemon Scented, and Lapsang souchong.

KUSMI TEA

Kusmi Tea was founded by Pavel Kousmichoff in Russia in 1867 and was quickly one of the favorites of the Tsars, but due to the Russian Revolution, the headquarters were moved to Paris in 1917. The brand is committed to having only natural flavors and organic teas in their recipes, and to their environmental cause, they also reduce their plastic waste.