This year top tea mixologists, Brighton-based British company Bird & Blend, have put the powerful green powdered leaves and the calendar concept together in a 23-different flavoured world first costing £65. Success originally with a more mainstream seasonal tea calendar for £35 prompted the firm’s founders Mike Turner and Krisi Smith to produce the matcha.
The first calendar, a staff member’s bright idea, surprised them by selling so well that “we ended up running night shifts to meet demand for next day’s online orders,” recalls Turner.
He and Smith, who set up originally with £25,000 from the government-backed Start-Up Loans Company, then decided to triple output of the calendars last year and they became Bird & Blend’s biggest selling product of the year and generating five per cent of sales.
This year they have recruited a team of eight temporary staff for the project with its the new star turn, their eco-friendly, vegan matcha tea version.
Featuring favourite matcha blends such as ice cream and salted caramel, there are also special appearances from the winter collection, think matcha mince pie.
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Behind each of the 24 doors are tips, tricks & tidbits to make the most of each matcha and a corresponding recipe-a-day that opens up a world of green cupcakes, cakes and cocktails.
The calendar also comes with its very own elf-sized, mini travel bamboo whisk.
Stocked in seven stores, including Bird & Blend’s new Greenwich Christmas pop-up, it is also available online. www.birdandblendtea.com