Giles Hilton – Whittard Curriculum Vitae

(From Philistine to Snob)

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, l started working with Dick Whittard in 1976.

Accountant at 111 Fulham Rd for Mr Dick Whittard

The ‘old shop at 111 Fulham Road’ was certainly from a bygone era. The retail area was really quite small, with some tins and packets of tea, teapots and caddies on show. The back-of-store space, around a 500-pound capacity tea-blending drum, was used to stock original and blended teas. All customers’ orders were weighed straight from the tea chests, which had numbers and names scratched on them in chalk. It was a complete mystery to me in the early days!

Becoming the Resident Taster

Mornings were always reserved for coffee roasting, with the wonderfully optimistic hope that it allowed time for any accidental fires caused by burning chaff in the chimney or roaster to be discovered as we were still on the premises. Risky business coffee roasting! Afternoons were for tasting tea samples of what we proposed to buy for our House blends.

The Origins of Whittard House Blends

Flavoured House teas like Earl Grey and Pelham – devised by Mr Whittard in the late 40’s after the move to Fulham Road and named after the elegant crescent across the road – were blended by hand on a huge table.

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 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 80’s when the Indian government suspended all Indian Tea exports for domestic political reasons, and 1/3 of my ingredients suddenly disappeared.

Buying 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. I am guilty of creating new fruit flavours like Summer Pudding, Sticky Toffee Pudding and Cinnamon Orange Rooibos. The ‘t-zone’ concept in central London, and our mail order/online business 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 having long ago realised how much more sensitive the nose is, l was always sticking my nose into sample packets of tea to determine quality, strength, flavour, and sometimes not actually bothering to brew them.