How two tea lovers went from backpacking to owning their own Sheffield business

Business partners, and co-owners of Batch Tea, Owen Terry and Marc Riley became firm friends after Marc, and two others he was travelling with, met Owen in a backpackers’ hostel, and agreed to give him a ride, as he attempted to reach the West Coast of Australia in 2006.

Their love of tea was such that the pair insisted on making ‘frequent tea stops’ during their journey, and began to bond over their love of the quintessentially British pastime of putting the kettle on and having a chat over a lovely cup of tea.

Owen’s passage with the group was only supposed to last for a week, but he changed his plans and stayed in the car; and before too long the pair were working together pruning trees on Melville Island, just off the coast of the Northern Territory.

Their travels took them to the East Coast of Australia, and when they reached Sydney, their talk of all things tea-related evolved into them ‘discussing a tea business,’ says Owen.

"It was obviously a shared interest. We’ve both benefited from growing up in the UK and having tea from a young age, having it coursing through our veins,” the 37-year-old said.

The pair both view drinking tea as an intrinsic part of British life, and regard the popular beverage’s role to be something that ‘brings people together’.

"That’s what tea’s about. When we invite someone into our house or our space, we offer to make them a cup of tea,” said Owen.

The pair travelled together for a couple of years, and visited a number of different tea making locations, of course; and have also visited tea producing regions in India and Northern Asia separately,

"We’ve been lucky enough to drink tea with some of the best tea producers in the world...we’ve been to China, India with the people producing it and have had them prepare it for us, and wanted to bring that back to the UK,” explains Marc, who is from Sheffield.

He added: “We would egg each other on and say: ‘Have you tried this, have you tried that’.”

After travelling together for a couple of years, the pair moved back to the UK and both began working for Reed in London in marketing jobs. During that time, Marc met his wife, Summer Riley.

Some years later, the pair went their separate ways, with Owen moving to Australia and Sheffield-born Marc returning to the Steel City.

"My wife is also from Sheffield...and after having our first child, the stars aligned for us and we decided the time was right to move back to Sheffield,” explained Marc.

Owen spent the next six years in Australia, and during that time he worked in the tea industry and trained to become a tea master, a qualification and status that is comparable to that of a wine sommelier, an expert who is able to identify a tea’s aroma, origins and mouthfeel.

His entry into the industry came when the ‘tea master’ course’s tutor, Stephen Carroll, who is one of the founders and a director of the Tea Guild of Australia, invited Owen to become a partner in his retail tea business.

Owen describes Stephen as being someone with a lot of ‘knowledge’ and ‘experience’ and is well-known and respected within the industry in Australia.

The role entailed travel to tea expos, and through that, mixing with leading figures in the industry.

"Stephen spent an entire lifetime getting to this point, and brought me along with him. I got fast-tracked, getting flown out to all these incredible cities,” explained Owen, adding that his role led to him being on friendly terms with some of the people who put on the China-based Huajuchen Tea Expos, the largest network of tea festivals in the world.

"They would invite us to come out and meet farmers involved in the tea industry,” Owen said.

As a result, when Owen returned to the UK in 2018, armed with a stash of some of the world’s best tea, he had plenty of industry knowledge and expertise to call upon.

While over in Australia Owen met his wife, Mia Johnson, who went to university in Sheffield, and the couple decided to move here.

This meant Owen and Marc were living in the same places again and the time was finally right for them to start their business. And so, Batch Tea was officially born on September 26, 2018.

It took them a year or so to formulate a cohesive an idea of ‘how they wanted to impact the market’.

The Covid-19 pandemic hit about a year after Batch Tea had started in earnest, and Owen describes trying to run a new business during a time of global uncertainty and upheaval as a ‘trial by fire’.

But the last 19 months have also seen consumers make more of a conscious effort to support independent producers and businesses, something which has thankfully held Batch Tea in good stead.

Today, Batch Tea is a micro-business and currently sells a total of 25 different types of small batch tea, some of which are award winning, including their Batch Breakfast tea, a blend of premium Indian & Sri Lankan teas which received a Great Taste award last year.

Tea lovers can find Batch Tea in a number of cafés and restaurants across Sheffield including Chapter One Coffee located in Weston Park; Heist’s tap room, Albies Coffee on Snig Hill as well as Whirlow Hall Farm café and the Steel Cauldron, for whom they have made unique Batch Tea blends.

From the offset, their objective has been to ‘have fun’ and sell ‘great tasting’ ‘high quality, ethical, sustainable’ tea that they are passionate about and is accessible to a wide range of customers.

The relationships they have cultivated and maintained with ‘single estate,’ meaning tea that comes from one estate or garden, producers and farmers through their travel and work in the industry has been invaluable in their hunt for the best tea they can get their hands on.

Batch Tea sells a small range of their own blended teas, through which they put their stamp on the products by putting teas with different notes and characteristics together to create an original blend.

Teas included within the range include Batch Breakfast; Batch Earl, their take on the classic Earl Grey, and their Batch Kama Sutra Sticky Chai, which Owen suggests is what they consider to be the ‘best’ and most ‘authentic’ Chai product you are likely to find in this country.

Owen said: “We’ve both travelled in India where everyone drinks Chai. In Australia, sticky Chai is a big thing, where it’s Chai coated with honey.”

He describes how they went through ‘several iterations’ before they got the blend right, which has been a big hit with customers. It is used in the Chai lattes sold at Albies Coffee on Snig Hill, and Owen and Marc say it has got a lot of people Chai tea.

While coffee and craft beer revolutions experienced over the past few years have seen consumers’ pallettes and ethical expectations of a product drastically change as they seek to learn more about their drink’s origin and production process, Marc and Owen believe the same can not be said of tea.

“There’s still this idea that it’s quite a quaint drink, that you drink it from china...you drop a tea bag in a mug and brew it for five minutes, but there’s so much to it. Both in terms of the production process and its history, both negative and positive, it’s fascinating,” Owen said.

He adds that there is, however, a small but growing community of tea aficionados, and says a ‘tea club’ has even been set up at Sheffield Hallam University.

They hope their understanding and mastery of the tea industry can help others to learn more about it, and are in the process of writing a book which currently has the working title of ‘Tea, and fun stuff to do with it’, which they hope will be released in April next year.

They have collaborated with chefs and bloggers to come up with for food and drink recipes for the book; and have also come up with their own selection of tea-infused cocktails that have gone down a treat at their pop-up tea bar, which they have taken to a range of events including the Southwell music festival.

Owen and Marc still work in marketing as freelancers while Batch Tea continues to grow, and Owen says they are on the ‘cusp’ of being able to focus on the business full time.

Visit https://www.batchtea.co.uk/ for more information.