Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Pack 232g
Brisk is not the same as strong, and this box sits squarely with the first. The cup comes up sharp and clean, closes quickly and leaves you ready for the next one, which is exactly what you want from something drunk six times a day and exactly wrong if you were after a mug dark enough to stand a spoon in. Anyone raised on a heavy malty builder's cup calls it thin on the first morning and usually stops noticing by the weekend, while anyone who finds most everyday tea claggy takes to it immediately. Three minutes rather than two. The sharpness arrives early and the body turns up late, so pulling the bag out at ninety seconds is what makes it taste slight. Eighty full-size bags, nothing clever in the build, and it holds in a pot as well as it does in a mug, which is not true of every brisk blend. Toast and a bacon sandwich rather than cake.
Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, in brief.
Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea is the Fairtrade certified everyday black tea in the standard eighty-bag family box.
Fairtrade is a trading standard covering the price paid to producers rather than a quality grade.
Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea is the Fairtrade everyday black tea that most people meet first, in the eighty-bag box that is the standard family size. It is the answer to a specific question: what do you put in the cupboard when you want an ordinary cup of tea and you would rather the growers were paid under a certified scheme.
Everyday black tea is the hardest category to write about honestly, because the differences between the main brands are real but small, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling something. What separates this box is the certification on the front of it rather than anything dramatic in the cup. That is the number that decides whether a tea like this belongs in your cupboard, and on this box it is the same as the uncertified mainstream brands sitting next to it.
Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Common questions are answered in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind Clipper
Clipper is a British tea house built around certified sourcing, and the Fairtrade mark on the front of this box is the reason most people pick it up rather than a cheaper one. What Fairtrade certification actually guarantees is a minimum price and a community premium paid back to producer organisations; it is a trading standard rather than a quality grade, and it is worth being clear about that distinction rather than letting the mark do work it does not do. The tea in the bag is an everyday black blend and it is a decent one.
The origins in the blend, the bag material, any unbleached or plastic-free claims, the full list of certification marks and the best-before date must all be read off the current UK pack rather than taken from this page.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
What You Are Actually Buying
- Count and weight: eighty bags, 232g net, which is about 2.9g a bag. That is a standard full-size everyday tea bag, not a one-cup.
- Price per cup: It lands level with the uncertified mainstream brands rather than above them.
- Fairtrade: the product name carries the mark. It is a trading standard covering the price paid to producers, not a statement about how the tea tastes.
- Takes milk properly: this is a black tea with real tannin in it, built for milk. Anything on the herbal side of the shelf is not.
- What it is not: not organic; Clipper sells a separate organic line and this box is not it. The pack name claims Fairtrade and nothing else.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Pack 232g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Clipper
Clipper was the first UK brand to launch a Fairtrade tea (1994) and remains synonymous with ethical, unbleached, plastic-free tea bags. Dorset-based and owned since 2012 by Wessanen, now Ecotone, with a comprehensive range covering everyday English Breakfast, organic blends, and herbal infusions.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
Our commitment to the planet
The taste profile
How does it compare
Everyday black tea is the one thing in the cupboard almost everyone already knows how to make, and the two mistakes that persist are both about temperature. Water that has stood in the kettle and milk poured into the mug first cost you more strength than any amount of extra steeping will win back.
The Standard Mug
The Family Pot
Made with this tea
The Proper Mug
How to make The Proper Mug with Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea.
- 1 bag Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea
- 250ml water at a rolling boil
- A splash of milk
- Boil the kettle fresh rather than reboiling water that has stood.
- Pour 250ml over one bag of Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Tea Bags 232g and stir once at ninety seconds.
- Steep to 3 minutes, or 4 if you take it dark, then lift the bag out.
- Add the milk after brewing, not before.
What you'll end up with: Fresh boiling water and milk added last are the two habits that separate a good everyday cup from a flat one.
The Family Pot
How to make The Family Pot with Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea.
- 5 bags Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea
- 1 litre just boiled water
- A warmed teapot
- Milk
- Warm the pot with boiling water and tip it out.
- Brew 5 bags of Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Tea Bags 232g, one per cup plus one for the pot, in 1 litre of just boiled water for 4 minutes.
- Take the bags out before the first cup is poured.
- Pour, and put milk in the cup whichever way round you prefer.
What you'll end up with: With a pot the milk order genuinely does not matter, because the tea leaves the pot at full strength already.
Iced Tea Jug
How to make an Iced Tea Jug with Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea.
- 3 bags Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea
- 400ml just boiled water
- 600ml cold water and ice
- 1 lemon, sliced
- Sugar to taste
- Brew 3 bags of Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Tea Bags 232g in 400ml of just boiled water for 4 minutes, double strength.
- Lift the bags out and stir in sugar while it is still warm if you want it sweet.
- Top up with 600ml of cold water and chill thoroughly.
- Serve over ice with slices of lemon.
What you'll end up with: Sweeten while it is warm or the sugar sits in a layer at the bottom of the jug and never goes anywhere.
Everyday Tea Loaf
How to make an Everyday Tea Loaf with Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea.
- 3 bags Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea
- 250ml just boiled water
- •300g mixed dried fruit
- •250g self raising flour
- 150g soft brown sugar
- •1 large egg
- Brew 3 bags of Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Tea Bags 232g in 250ml of just boiled water for 10 minutes and let it cool completely.
- Soak 300g of mixed dried fruit in the cold tea overnight.
- The next day beat in 250g of self raising flour, 150g of soft brown sugar and 1 large egg.
- Bake in a lined 2lb loaf tin at 170°C for 60 minutes.
What you'll end up with: Keeps four days in a tin and is better on the second day. The tea is doing the work that butter would otherwise do.
Strong Brew for Cooking
How to make a Strong Brew for Cooking with Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea.
- 4 bags Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea
- 300ml just boiled water
- Brew 4 bags of Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Tea Bags 232g in 300ml of just boiled water for 10 minutes.
- Squeeze the bags out against the side of the jug, which is a mistake in a mug and correct here.
- Use it to soak dried fruit, to braise a ham, or as the liquid in a marinade.
- Keep what is left in the fridge for two days.
What you'll end up with: A strong tea brew adds tannin and colour to a braise the way red wine does, at a fraction of the cost.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Ingredient | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Fairtrade black tea | the whole of the bag | A blend of Fairtrade certified black tea leaf. It supplies everything in the cup: the briskness, the colour, the body and the tannin that lets it take milk. |
| Certification | Fairtrade, per the pack name | A trading standard covering the price paid to producers and a community premium. The full list of marks carried by the current pack is on the carton. |
| Format | 80 bags, 232g net | About 2.9g a bag, a standard full-size everyday tea bag, which is why it stands up to milk without making a heavy cup. |
Pack: Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Tea Bags 232g; caffeinated black tea. Store sealed, cool and dry; the best-before date is printed on the pack.
Characterising components shown. Blended by Clipper.
Sourcing & blend. Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Tea Bags 232g is blended by Clipper, a British tea house whose proposition is certified sourcing. The Fairtrade mark named on the pack is a trading standard: it covers a minimum price and a community premium paid back to producer organisations, rather than grading the leaf.
What's in Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Tea Bags 232g, and what isn't:
- In: Fairtrade certified black tea leaf, with nothing in the bag but the tea.
- No added sugar or flavouring: this is plain black tea. Anything sweet in the mug is something you put there.
Asked about this tea
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Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Clipper Fairtrade Everyday Tea, 80 Pack 232g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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