Maison Kettle started with a bad cup of expensive tea, and the discovery that the good stuff was leaving India in bulk sacks, headed for blends with someone else's name on them.
In 2025 our founder spent a week in the Kurseong hills expecting a factory tour and got an education instead. The best lots from each garden were auctioned within days of plucking, shipped abroad, and blended into anonymity. What stayed behind, which is what most of us drink, was everything else. That week ended with a handshake, a reserved lot of second flush, and no real plan beyond a conviction: Indians should get first pour of India's best tea.
Kurseong, the week it started.
We work directly with estates and buy whole lots, not grades off a broker's sheet. Each lot becomes one batch: plucked in a named week, rolled whole, tinned within thirty days, numbered by hand. The number isn't branding. It's a receipt. Write to us with your batch number and we'll tell you the plucking dates, the garden, and what the weather was doing that fortnight.
2025
The bad cup
An expensive tin, a flat cup, and the discovery that the good lots leave India in bulk sacks.
2025
A week in Kurseong
A factory tour becomes an education. The best two lots at the tasting table were already sold abroad.
Nov 2025
Batch zero
The handshake lot, tinned by hand. Never sold. Given to friends who told us the truth about it.
Mar 2026
Batch one
Two hundred and twenty tins of first flush. Gone in nineteen days.
Today
Batch by batch
Five teas, five gardens, one ledger. When a batch is gone, it's gone.
The number on the tin is a receipt, not a slogan.
Our founding principle, such as it is
We're small on purpose. Nine batches a year per tea, give or take the harvest. Some things about this model are inconvenient. Teas sell out, flavours drift between batches, we say no a lot. We think that's what tea is supposed to be like. The alternative is on every supermarket shelf, consistent as cardboard.
