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Eteaket's first tea room in Edinburgh opened up in 2008 but its origin story goes back much further than that.
The founder of this incredible company, Erica, used to be a litigation lawyer before deciding that life was much too short to 'be doing something she wasn't completely fulfilled by and passionate about'.
After this, Erica made one of the bravest decisions of her life and began the process of bringing back leaf tea to the British market - something that definitely took a great deal of courage considering the booming coffee industry at the time.
After trips to Sri Lanka and India to learn as much about the tea trade as possible, she opened up the first Eteaket tea room on at 41 Frederick Street in Edinburgh in December 2008.
Erica managed to continue to build her business despite the financial crisis at the time and it is now a company that ships tea across the world, supplies cafe's and restaurants with leaf tea and has a brilliant website.
Eteaket just took another big step by opening up its first retail concept store at 111 Rose Street in Edinburgh, which is another great central location in the city centre.
My first taste of this company was just over a year and a half ago in mid 2016.
An old friend of mine and I decided to try it out for a catch-up so we headed over to Frederick Street and took a seat.
We were served instantly and it took us several minutes to pick just one flavour of tea to have each. My friend chose a floral one while I played it safe with peppermint but, after trying each others, we both agreed that this tea was of incredible quality.
My next experience with the company wouldn't be until much more recently.
I was at a business event at Edinburgh Zoo where they were showing a taster of a Chinese Lantern festival they will be hosting for 50 days running from December when I got a chance to try some more of Eteaket's tea.
The first thing I noticed when I came up the stairs to where all of the different tables were laid out was the Eteaket Tea table.
I love tea so this was heaven for me.
I bypassed the wine and was offered a selection of teas. Once again, playing it safe, I chose the English Breakfast tea and I was instantly at ease in my new surroundings.
The rich, comforting flavour of the tea relaxed me enough to be able to go and speak to other people at the event and I carried it around for most of my time there.
Later on, after some incredible, hand-crafted lanterns had been revealed, I actually got a chance to talk to Erica.
We started discussing the lanterns before moving onto tea and Eteaket.
I had no idea she was the founder of the company and it didn't fully hit me until after she'd handed me her business card.
Erica is so inspiring to me. She's a working mother but, most importantly, she's someone who truly cares about getting Britain, and Scotland, to embrace leaf tea.
Erica works tirelessly with her incredible team to find new flavours and the manager I met at the tea stand (A lovely woman called Angela) even convinced me to try their new Tomatin Whisky Tea.
It's the 1st ever barrel-aged tea and combines traditional flavours with those of the famous distillery in the Highlands of Scotland.
I am not a fan of whisky. It burns my throat and I simply don't like the taste but this tea was just the right amount of flavour for me to be able to enjoy it.
My talks with Erica and Angela that night (and also the three different types of tea I tried) inspired me to look up the website and do some more research about the company.
Anyone who knows me knows I love coffee but I actually drink much more tea so I was in my element.
The website is easy to browse and even has tips on when it's best to drink each tea and the strength of it.
I bought the 3 Month Tea Club and was thrilled when it arrived. I waited until I had a day off from work so I could enjoy it properly and it was definitely worth the wait.
The beautiful and simple packaging and the gorgeous colour of the teapot inside got me extremely excited for the English Breakfast tea and it was truly scrumptious.
I can't wait to order some more and to receive my next two boxes in my subscription.
Jane and I will definitely need to visit the tea room soon!
Jessica
To read more about the founding of this company, click here: Eteaket Story
To shop some delicious tea, click here: Eteaket Treats
