BRIDPORT is getting its ethical brew on thanks to a new speciality tea business.

Dorset Chai Wallah was set up by Bridport resident Carrie Gamble last April after she struggled to find good quality loose leaf, ethically-sourced tea.

She said: “I have focused on ethical sourcing because it fits with my personal values and I was very aware that there are lots of issues around the treatment of pickers on the plantations.”

Among her wide range of loose-leaf and ‘wellness blend’ teas, which are mainly ethically-sourced organic and fair trade, is the uniquely-titled Bridport Breakfast tea.

Carrie said: “One of the reasons for the Bridport breakfast tea is because the water is notoriously hard around here, so finding a tea that could take that was quite difficult.

“It’s a mix of Assam and a tea from Malawi.

“It’s a round-bodied breakfast tea but it’s also got that smoothness about it.

“We’ve found people come back again and again for it.”

Each tea also has a story, as Carrie explained.

“I deal directly with a plantation out in Sri Lanka, the Greenfield Estate.

“They have been registered fair trade and organic since the 1990s and they do a lot of local community work... so that workers can live on the plantation and their children can go to school there, because a lot of them travel from very far away.”

Carrie stressed that another key focus for the products is quality: “I know the quality of tea from our suppliers will always be good and the Greenfield Estate often supply us with a variety of small and larger leaf teas.

She added: “Where one of our tea blends is not organic, this is because we cannot find a tea of good enough quality.

“But we donate five percent of the retail cost of the tea to The Tea Leaf Trust, which works to improve conditions for pickers in Sri Lanka.”

A selection of Dorset Chai Wallah teas is available at Fruits of the Earth in Bridport.

A wider selection – which includes Darjeeling, Chai, Oolong and more – is available online or every Saturday from mid-February at Bridport market.