About Cotterley

Cotterley is not a tea brand in the marketing sense at all. It is the in-house tea label of Intermarche, France's third-largest supermarket group, where it sits as the everyday own-label competing with Carrefour and Casino on price. That means it is held to the discipline of a major national grocer's private brand: blended to a fixed specification, costed tightly, and judged purely on whether shoppers come back. There is no founder myth and that is the point.

The range is the practical French everyday spread, green tea with mint in the North African style, lemon, fruit infusions and a straightforward breakfast black, pitched as affordable daily tea. What makes it worth importing is the detail under the low price: biodegradable bags, FSC cartons, and the tidy, repeatable blending of a brand that has to satisfy a demanding domestic grocery audience. For our shelf Cotterley is the under-the-radar pick we recommend most to value-conscious tea drinkers. It is noticeably better than most UK supermarket own-label at a comparable price, the mint green in particular is a genuinely good everyday cup that costs very little, and the environmental basics are covered rather than ignored. For a customer who assumes cheap tea has to mean nasty tea, it is the single easiest counter-example we can hand them, and it tends to convert them on the first box.

Key facts

• French house brand Cotterley is the in-house tea label of Intermarche, France's third-largest supermarket group. The name was chosen to suggest a traditional English cottage feel; the blending and packaging happens to French retail standards.
• Imported for UK customers We bring the Cotterley range across the Channel because the build quality at this price point is rare on British shelves. The lemon, mint, fruit and breakfast blends all carry the same French supermarket-standard hallmarks: biodegradable bags, FSC card boxes, no plastic glues or staples.
• Affordable luxury positioning The brand's mission in France is high quality tea at family prices rather than premium-tier mark-up. The UK pricing reflects that, a step above supermarket-own-brand on quality, well below specialist tea labels on cost.
• L'Oriental blending discipline Cotterley uses a specific in-house blending technique they call L'Oriental, designed to give a consistent flavour profile across every harvest. The bags are larger than most British supermarket teas at 1.6g per bag, so the cup brews stronger from a single bag.

The founders

Brand timeline

1. 2010 Brand established

   Cotterley launched as the house tea label of Intermarche, France's third-largest supermarket group.

2. 2016 Thé Vert à la Menthe added to the range

   The Maghrebi-inspired Green Mint variant joins the Cotterley lineup, building on the long French tradition of North African mint tea culture. Sencha-style green tea base blended with real peppermint via the L'Oriental method.

3. 2018 L'Oriental blending discipline

   In-house blending technique designed to give consistent flavour across every harvest. Bags larger than UK supermarket standard at 1.6g each.

4. 2026 Imported to the UK

   Teas.co.uk imports the Cotterley range into the UK for value-conscious British tea drinkers who want better build quality than supermarket-own-brand.

Sustainability

Cotterley's sustainability work is built into the format. The tea bags are plant-based and home compostable where labelled, with no plastic glues or metal staples. The outer cardboard cartons carry FSC certification for sustainable forestry, and the brand frequently scores high on French retail sustainability benchmarks.

• Plastic-free tea bags Biodegradable paper and cotton string, no metal staples, no plastic glues. The bag breaks down on a home compost heap where labelled, which removes the contamination problem the older nylon mesh bags created.
• FSC-certified cardboard The 25-bag cartons are 100% recyclable and carry FSC certification for sustainable forestry practices. Standard French supermarket packaging compliance, ahead of much of the UK supermarket-own-brand tea range.
• Rainforest Alliance sourcing Where applicable, the tea leaves are Rainforest Alliance certified, ensuring fair wages and biodiversity protection at the growing estates. Mint, fruit and herbal inclusions are sourced from named regions depending on the blend.
• Low environmental impact Cotterley frequently receives high scores on French retail sustainability benchmarks. The brand prioritises low environmental impact across the supply chain, from leaf sourcing through to the recyclable packaging.