Tea at the Office: How to Set Up Good Loose-Leaf Tea for Your Team

Most offices have a tea "solution". Usually it is a cardboard box of assorted tea bags next to the coffee machine: half of them a flavour nobody chose, the other half open since spring. It works, in the sense that hot water turns brown. But it is rarely a reason to get up from your desk.

Good tea at the office does not have to be complicated. With a few simple choices, a corner of the kitchen becomes a place people actually look forward to. We are a small family tea shop in Amsterdam with Greek roots, and this is how we would set it up for your team.

Why loose-leaf tea instead of tea bags?

Tea bags are convenient, but most of them hold small, broken pieces of leaf. Loose-leaf tea uses larger leaves, whole herbs, pieces of fruit and real spices, and you can see exactly what goes into your cup. The difference is mostly one of taste and experience:

• More flavour. Larger leaves have room to unfold in the water, which gives a rounder, more aromatic cup.
• More variety. Four tins of loose tea can cover black, green, herbal and fruity blends, instead of one box of identical bags.
• No strings attached. No individually wrapped bags, staples or tags: just leaves, a filter and a mug.
• A small ritual. Scooping, steeping and waiting a few minutes turns a cup of tea into a proper break.

Loose tea sounds like more work, but in practice it takes about as long as a tea bag: one scoop in a filter, hot water, a few minutes, done.

What you need for a good office tea corner

You do not need a barista station. A simple setup does the job:

• A kettle, ideally with temperature settings. Black tea, rooibos and herbal blends like freshly boiled water, while green and white teas taste best at around 70–80 °C. A kettle with an 80 °C button saves a lot of bitter cups.
• Mugs with an infuser. A mug with a stainless-steel filter and a lid makes loose tea as easy as a tea bag. Our Juliet stoneware tea mugs are made for exactly this, and you can add them to an Office Tea plan as a one-time add-on at a discount.
• Airtight tins. Tea keeps its aroma best away from light, heat, moisture and strong smells, so not right next to the coffee grinder.
• A teaspoon and a small label per tea. A note with the water temperature and steeping time is all the instruction anyone needs.
• A place for used leaves. A small bin or compost caddy next to the sink keeps the corner tidy.

Choosing a mix your whole team will drink

Every office is a mix of tastes. Someone wants a strong black tea at nine, someone else only drinks herbal tea after lunch, and there is always one person who just wants "something fruity". A good selection covers a few bases:

• A classic black tea or chai for the coffee crowd, such as Earl Grey Blue or our spiced Cretan Chai.
• A green or white tea for a lighter, fresher cup, for example Byzantium with citrus, cinnamon and vanilla.
• A caffeine-free herbal or rooibos blend for the afternoon and for colleagues who skip caffeine, like Olympos Secret with Greek mountain herbs, or Rooibos Orange.
• Something new every month, so the tea corner never fades into the background.

Four blends is a good number: enough choice for everyone, not so much that the shelf turns into chaos.

Brewing basics to stick on the cupboard

Every Holy Tea pack carries its own brewing instructions, but these rules of thumb work for most blends, per 250 ml mug and about one heaped teaspoon (3–4 g) of tea:

• Black tea: 100 °C, 3–5 minutes
• Green and white tea: 70–80 °C, 2–3 minutes
• Rooibos: 100 °C, 6–8 minutes
• Herbal blends: 100 °C, 8–10 minutes

Green tea that tastes bitter has usually met water that was too hot, or stayed in too long. Herbal tea that tastes thin usually needed a few more minutes. Cover the mug while it steeps to keep the aroma in.

How much tea does an office need?

As a rough guide, a team of 5–15 people goes through about 160–200 cups a month, depending on how many of you are in the office and how much of a tea crowd you are. We wrote a separate guide with a simple calculation and a table by team size: how much tea does your office need?

Let someone else keep the shelf full: Office Tea

The hardest part of an office tea corner is not setting it up; it is keeping it stocked and interesting. That is what Office Tea is for. Every month we send your office a new selection of four of our own Greek and Mediterranean-inspired loose-leaf blends, always including a caffeine-free one, delivered by courier anywhere in the Netherlands.

• Starter – Tea Corner · €54/month · for 5–15 people · 400 g, 4 blends × 100 g (about 160–200 cups)
• Team – Tea Break · €95/month · for 15–40 people · 800 g, 4 blends (about 320–400 cups)
• Office – Tea Ritual · €179/month · for 40–100 people and coworkings · 1,600 g, 4 blends (about 640–800 cups)

More than 100 people in the office? Contact us for a tailored offer.

Every blend comes with brewing instructions on the pack, plus a short video for each tea type, so nobody needs to be a tea expert. There is no minimum term, you can pause or skip a delivery when the office is quiet, and we send an invoice with every order.

Taste first with the Office Tea Trial Box

Not sure what your team will like? The Office Tea Trial Box (€21.99) brings three seasonal teas of 50 g each to your office, with free courier delivery anywhere in the Netherlands. The Trial Box is for companies, so you enter your company name and KvK number when you order. If you then choose a plan, the €21.99 comes back as a one-time discount on your first Starter, Team or Office payment, valid for 30 days.

In Amsterdam and Amstelveen we can also visit your office once, the first time, to present our teas and brew the trial teas together with your team. It is entirely optional, if you would like it and have the time.

Is Office Tea the right fit?

If most of your team works from home, or you are looking for tea just for yourself, we have plans for that too. Compare all our tea plans for home, the home office and the office, and pick the one that suits you.