Normal UK tea bags on amazon.fr are more than three times their cost at Tesco’s, so it makes me worry there’s a new (brexit) import duty. So before I shell out the postage does anyone know if it is still OK and legal for me to post them from the UK to a mate in France?
It seems to depend how you post them. I ordered from Tesco in the UK and had groceries incl. teabags delivered by @man and van’, no problems, no extra duty, just the delivery costs. He advised it would not be a problem unless meat, dairy and excess alcohol.
Also had a friend post some goods from the UK - never arrived.
still seems total potluck - some advise that DHL and courier services charge up to 30 Euros handling and customs fees - no matter what is in the box.
Would try the regular post with a small box of teabags, if your mate gets his tea - great.
Are you sure your mate can’t find them in his local supermarkets? Ours has tetley’s tea plus a couple of other normal brands. A bit more than one would pay in Morrisons, but less that the hassle of ordering them from afar and risking them never arriving.
If you ask someone to post stuff to you they need to fill in customs form making clear low value gift, and not send by a courier company. (Tea is legal to send)
Our daughter sent Yorkshire Tea to us a couple of weeks ago without a problem.
In the future they are probably going to do spot checks on things going true the post
Why do you get t bags from uk when you can buy a box of 100 tetley tea bags fir around €6 in intermarche and 100 Earl grey tetley bags fir €5?
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or ‘Westminster’ brand at Aldi ?
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Dépends on where you are and if there’s local demand, for years there was nothing but very weak liptons, i can buy some brands of proper tea now but it’s still double the price of uk prices. I’ve only recently started drinking tea again as i drink far too many espressi each day. I also stopped drinking tea years ago when you could only get uht milk in France. How things have changed in recent years!
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If you live in Brittany you can get Barry’s Tea in both bags and loose from Le Comptoir Irlandaise shops. We regularly visit the ones in Vannes and Pontivy. They also have internet shop. Not that cheap but rather pay for a decent tea than drink rubbish. We also apply same principle to coffee. We only have one cup a day so make it a good one.
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Because they are not the same.
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what’s it like, not like pigeon p…s?, any comparison with Yorks tea.?
Excellent. They do a classic blend in red box and and stronger one in black box as well as breakfast tea. They have a warehouse in Finisterre so delivery times are short. We drink nothing else but this now!!
I am a total tea addict but not a caffeine addict. I found it impossible to get decent decaff teabags in France. Used to stock up every time I went to UK.
They do decaf as well as Green tea. Check their website to see if they have a store near you
Just received this from UPS:
Dear Customer,
From 1 July 2021, there will be significant changes to the European Union’s Value Added Tax rules applying to the shipment of goods into the EU. While these reforms primarily target B2C e-commerce imports, impacting both businesses and online shoppers, they may also impact B2B imports.
If you ship goods into the EU, we recommend that you begin preparing your business now.
Please consider how the following changes may impact your business:
Removal of the €22 VAT exemption for imports
The VAT exemption currently in place for goods imported into the EU with a value up to €22 will be removed, meaning that these shipments will now be subject to VAT. These low value goods will therefore also require formal customs clearance, although most goods valued up to €150 remain exempt from customs duties.
I recently bought Tetleys tea bags from Amazon Germany. 3 bags of 240 tea bags each for 33 euros all in with delivery. They were also the original tea bags (not one-cup) and we easily make a cuppa for both of us using one bag. They came from the UK, but French VAT had already been paid, and no import fees. Strangely, the same item wasn’t visible on Amazon France.
SUCCESS!
Having looked at all the comments I took the plunge, went to the local UK cash n carry, bought the bags and shipped them via normal Parcel Force to Charente. they arrived on day 5. No Duty. No VAT. No problems.
Irony was the same day for business we sent some EU made routerboards to France via UPS. Minimal value. Full declarations in triplicate. They did not even make it to Dover! They’ve come back yet no one knows why they were refused. Perhaps next time we’ll send Tea wrapped “in routerboards” and not cardboard 
Sorry, not quite understood that part, tea made it router boards not?
Under postage rules, food/teabags need to be wrapped in Cardboard or some other waterproof/leakproof container. I was just hoping the French customs team’s English was as bad as my French so would see Routerboard and translate it as Carton!
I stopped putting milk in tea when I realised, A-B’ing it against black tea, that the predominent taste is of rancid milk - whichever you put in first.
Having moved to black tea, a wonderful world of teas opens up. From the ‘default’ Earl Grey [+lemon is nice but without better i.m.h.o.] to Lapsang - and there are many of those.
I used to live minutes from Whittard’s original shop, in Sth Kensington, when it was a proper tea distributer with a shop out front.
I asked for ‘lapsang soochong’ once and a chap in a ‘cow-gown’ [long brown coat] led me to the stockroom - dozens of open tea chests - where he gave me a run thru’ of about 4 grades of lapsang
“Does sir take it with lemon? No? Then try this” - scoops up a handful from a tea chest and we both have a sniff … “A longer leaf and a little more smoke …” The world of real tea.
The tea I settled on for afternoons was - ‘The Afternoon Tea’. In fact, at the time it was called The Pelham Mixture - “We send it to all the embassies” - because the shop was opposite Pelham Crescent. Now called The Afternoon Tea and NOT to be confused with The Afternoon Earl Grey, a much inferior mixture.
For mornings, Russian Caravan very slightly smoked with a lovely malty flavour. Keemun - similar to Russian Caravan but a touch more floral. Used as the base for floral teas such as E.G. or Pelham Mix.
A g/f had a dreadful habit of drinking only instant coffee. It was a matter of speed. Boiling water, teaspoon of brown dust, 3 of sugar - 15 secs, a hot, brown drink. No relation to coffee …
For a while I got her onto a floral tea - Passion Fruit. We were in a cafe and drinking this tea. The scent must have wafted across to the adjacent table because we were asked
“What’s that nice tea I can smell?”
“Passion Fruit”
“Does it work?”
So ever after we called it “Does it Work”
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