Apr 20, 2021

Join The New Generation of Tea this National Tea Day with OFFBLAK

The humble cup of tea. The daily cuppa that is there for us through every emotion, whether you reach for a traditional breakfast tea, a fruity herbal blend or a detoxifying green tea, stands as a failsafe source of comfort. We’ve been sipping rather a lot over the past year. And now with lots of garden and park catch-ups on these crisp Spring days, we’ve been popping on the kettle even more…travel cups at the ready.

Today in celebration of National Tea Day, we chat to Lucy Keeble, Design Manager at insta-genic tea brand OFFBLAK to chat all things brewed and learn how they are rewriting the rules of our traditional tea drinking.

Let’s start from the beginning, what inspired the creation of OFFBLAK?
Our founder Dmitry Klochkov started his career in finance and drinking rather a lot of tea to stay fuelled, hydrated and nourished through long working hours in the city, he noticed a gap in the market. He saw that the tea market was missing a functional tea that tastes good, looks good and is good for the environment. His curious attitude to pursue real challenges is what drove him to make a difference and solve the tea market challenges with OFFBLAK. We’re now a small (but enthusiastic!) team based in London.

Nothing beats a cup of tea, how does OFFBLAK tea stand out from the rest?
We’re anything but boring, plain black tea - hence our name! OFFBLAK offers a variety of 12 functional wellness teas including caffeine free, various herbal, flavoured black and green teas - so there’s always a tea for any time of day you fancy popping the kettle on. Our tea blends such as Blueberry & Mint and Cinnamon & Red Bilberry are really unique combinations that turn tea flavours on their head. Our number one mission is to make tea cool and healthy again with our fun and functional aesthetic and quirky illustrated packaging that will brighten up your kitchen. Our tea is also sustainably sourced with fully recyclable packaging.

We love your vibrant tea blends, how do you come up with your flavour combinations and which is your favourite?
Mixing interesting flavour combinations is one of our favourite product development areas. We have a wide range of different tea bases to start from including black tea, green tea plus herbal and fruit infusions. Making sure that we cater for people who enjoy caffeinated teas as well as caffeine free teas, along with being able to drink different types of tea at different times of the day is really important to us.

During development, we wanted each tea to have a story and we tried to imagine how we felt when drinking each flavour combination. For example, for our Future is Pink - Earl Grey & Rose Black Tea we wanted to make a product that would make you break up with your morning rut and get you sliding on your trainers and out the door for a run! We’re also massively excited that we won 5 Great Taste Awards for our tasty tea blends last year.

Good design is at the forefront of everything we do at OB, how does design influence OFFBLAK?
Design is at the absolute forefront of the vibrant OFFBLAK world. The boring and old fashioned image of tea is one of the main reasons that OFFBLAK exists today. We wanted to shake things up and create a range of tea to complement your lifestyle because we believe that your products should be as stylish as you. Our motto is always to be bold, never beige!

To bring our tea blends to life, we collaborated with UK based illustrator, Thomas Hedger. Our illustrations are drawn to convey each tea’s mood and the effect it has one you when you drink it. For example, our It’s All Peachy - Raspberry & Peach Green Tea, we felt that the fruity and refreshing flavours instantly transported us to that sunny weather and getting some sun on the pool float vibe - so our packaging features a fun bright pink floating flamingo!

The whole team is hugely influenced by art and design - whether that’s a big street art mural on the side of a building in London whilst on a walk, an interesting outfit someone is wearing in a shop or just simply scrolling through Pinterest and Instagram. One of my favourite parts of my job as Design Manager at OFFBLAK is conceptualising and designing our seasonal gifts.Last year we launched our first ever tea advent calendar which was my favourite packaging project I’ve ever worked on. I’m excited to get to design our range for 2021!

Lastly, we always like to ask, if you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
Everything always works out in the end! And hard work always pays off - so keep going!

For more tea drinking inspiration head to our Mugs & Cups Edit.

Competition

We’ve teamed up with our friends at OFFBLAK to raise your game on your tea drinking ritual. For a chance to win a bundle of OFFBLAK tea and OB serving ware follow the following steps:

To enter:
1. You must be following @oliverbonas and @offblak on Instagram.
2. Head to the post on Oliver Bonas Instagram, and tag someone you want to enjoy a brew with.

Prize:
OFFBLAK teas
1 x Sol Ceramic Tea for Two
1 x Sol Ceramic Teapot
1 x Sol Ceramic Teacups & Saucers Set of Four

Terms & Conditions
UK residents only.
Only 1 entry per person.
Entries are valid from this Instagram post only.
To enter you must be following @oliverbonas and @OFFBLAK
Competition starts 21st April and finishes at the end of day 27th April. The winner will be selected at random by 28th April and will be announced via their original Instagram comment. Entries are only valid if completed correctly in accordance with these Terms & Conditions.