Our Mission is to surprise and delight our customers with our passion for the very best tea, coffee and related gifts from around the world.

Giles Hilton is our Product Director and 'The Nose' of Whittard of Chelsea. Giles joined Whittard in 1976 and has been responsible for sourcing and buying our tea and coffee every since. To follow his adventures visit Giles' Blog and sign up for the regular Tmail, our email newsletter. Below Giles' talks us through his time at Whittard.

The Early Years

I sometimes ask myself how I came to be selecting some of the finest teas from around the world. The son of a Kentish farmer, I sensibly forsook farming and came to London to work. Having drifted through quite a variety of jobs for the first eight years of my working life, I started working with Dick Whittard in 1976.

A Five-year Apprenticeship

It took me five years to accumulate a directory of taste in my head, gained through continuously tasting the ingredients of the ever-popular English Breakfast Blend and other House favourites. Much of our tea was bought at the London auctions on Mondays, with tasting on Wednesday and Thursday, and bids in to the broker on Friday. I became steadily more confident of obtaining consistent blends, though there was definitely something of a crisis in the early 80s when the Indian government suspended all Indian Tea exports for domestic political reasons, and one third of my ingredients suddenly disappeared.

Buy the Best

I inherited some excellent tea and coffee sources, and have continued to extend my knowledge and contacts by travelling to producing countries. I certainly take great pride in maintaining Whittard's reputation by 'Buying the Best', and very much enjoy developing new tea blends. The Tea Blending Zones in our Covent Garden store and here on the website, Tea Blending Zone, has given me a chance to make available some of the rarest and without doubt finest teas.

Christened 'The Nose'

Some years ago my colleagues at Whittard christened me 'The Nose'. This is mainly because I realised how much more sensitive the nose is, I was always sticking my nose into sample packets of tea to determine quality, strength and flavour without even brewing them!
BR> I regularly update my blog, Giles' Blog, with news about my latest trip and finds, have a read through, or why not join our Tea & Coffee Society to gain access to our forum where we have live web chats about where I've been and what I've been up to. I also regularly send out samples and tasting packs to our Tea & Coffee Society members to get valuable customer feedback.

Giles' Favourite Teas & Coffees

They say that events in one's early life influence your views and tastes in later life.

I was brought up on a farm, where everything was fresh and very little food arrived pre-packed; milk from our own cows, eggs from the chickens. However the food appreciation revolution, where wider choice is appreciated, had not yet happened for me, so when I met Mr. Dick Whittard in 1976, I had no taste for fine tea and coffee. Good strong English tea was it for me (definitely loose leaf - even I recognised the 'lack of definition' in some of the cheaper teabags around!). I was joining him as his accountant/book keeper, not a trainee taster, so I wasn't ashamed to admit my philistine tastes!

My Love of Darjeeling

Working with someone who has an amazing palate for quality Darjeeling does however quickly begin to affect one's own taste. To be greeted with "try this, it's new season, just arrived"; or during a tasting "this is good enough to swallow", soon had me seeking explanations of these new delights. My love for lightly brewed top quality Darjeeling grew from there. During a stressful afternoon, I would take just a pinch of leaves in a rice bowl, and frequently make it last for half an hour, by topping up with boiling water.

My Love of Ceylon Tea

Dick Whittard's second favourite was Assam. "You'll need something stronger than Darjeeling for breakfast, try this." No matter how often I tried to get away from strong blends, and into 'original' Assam, I was never happy. Then one happy autumn, we spent all our tea tasting sessions tasting Ceylon BOP (Broken Orange Pekoe). Oh joy! I found it clean, crisp, and fresh tasting, and strong enough to take milk well. It didn't have the thick malty kick that so many people love, and I had been struggling with. Now I couldn't start my day without a medium strong Dimbula. I adore proper Orange Pekoe from Ceylon as well, but only during the afternoons as a change from Darjeeling.

My Love of Oolong Tea

Serious Oolong is simply ethereal; it is meant for moments of quiet contemplation, of serious writing, of good conversation. In the 70s and 80s we had brilliant Formosa Peach Blossom... whole tips and bud, still intact having travelled half way around the world. I would have argued that this was absolutely unbeatable, until I discovered there were a handful of China Oolongs that could surpass even them. So now it's Ti Kuan Ying Monkey Picked, Goddess of Mercy or Peach Blossom. If there was space I would quote Lu T'ung's poem on the seven cups of tea, written in the T'ang dynasty AD620-907. He certainly knew how to enjoy his tea.

My Love of Guatemala Elephant Coffee

I learnt coffee roasting about three years after I had started tea tasting. Whittard is one of those rare companies that specialise in both tea and coffee. I still have vivid memories of the rumbling Whitmee roaster, which had a mind of its own, and seemed to sense when your back was turned! The most popular coffee in those days was Kenya, which I found too bright. Next came Colombian which I certainly found smoothly richer for my morning coffee.

I knew therefore in which Continent my coffee affections lay - Central and South America. Indonesian was at the time too heavy for me. We stocked some excellent Guatemalan in those days, which had a very particular intensity, with amazing hints of dark chocolate and honey. Then in the 80s it seemed to disappear, until happily I have rediscovered the taste in the over-sized Maragogype beans.

My Love of Pico Duarte, Dominican Republic Coffee

One is never too old to learn! In fact charging in like an inquisitive child can yield great results. I heard of Eduardo in the mid-90s through a friend visiting the Dominican Republic; his 'Reforestation Café' was regenerating life in the de-forested, low-employment interior hills by planting coffee. He was making serious investment - employing many villagers, rebuilding schools, laying water supply, even using an 'earth-mover' to lay roads.

What would his coffee be like? Would he sell me raw beans, or was he only interested in volume bulked trade coffee? It's simply the best 'island grown' I have tasted, with a magical Caribbean flavour - subtly sweet, gently nutty, and firmly smooth. It benefits from rich volcanic soil, clear mountain air, and fresh regular rainfall. The secret 'island-grown' ingredient is the natural cloud cover to shade the bushes from the sun, and drench them daily. I buy the most superb hand-stored raw bold beans exclusively from Eduardo, and am very happy to pay a good premium for such quality, care and most of all flavour.