Hello, and welcome to the first ever Yorkshire Tea blog.

From here on in we promise to bring you regular updates from the world of Yorkshire Tea. Whether it’s the adventures of our expert tea-buyers as they travel the world visiting our growers or simply interesting things we’ve discovered closer to home, we aim to share and hope you enjoy.

To start with, however, let’s talk about something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH TEA.

The rainforest.

Actually, it’s got plenty to do with tea. Plenty to do with everything in fact. The rainforest, which absorbs carbon and emits oxygen on a massive scale, is our planet’s life support system.

And it’s being destroyed.

An acre of rainforest is lost every second. Half of it has already gone, forever. We now know that this deforestation is a major cause of climate change. The destruction of the rainforest generates more greenhouse gas emissions each year than all the trains, planes and cars on the planet.

That’s why we’ve started the Yorkshire Rainforest Project– our plan to save an area of rainforest the size of Yorkshire. Together with the Rainforest Foundation UK, we’re working with the Ashaninka people of the Peruvian Amazon to protect the forest they call home from the many threats they face: loggers, petrochemical companies, illegal settlers… the list is long and the challenge is great.

The good news is, if you’re a Yorkshire Tea drinker, you’re already helping. For every box of tea we sell, we’re saving a rainforest tree. But if you’d like to do more than that, you can – collect the tokens on our packs and for every four you save, another 50p goes into our Yorkshire Rainforest Project fund.

This is obviously a big mission and we’re in it for the long run. We’ll keep you posted as things develop.

So that’s it for now – thanks for reading our first blog. We’d love to know what you think, so please get in touch if you’ve got something to say.

Till next time!