Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea, 80 Tea Bags 160g
Organic and Fairtrade are both printed in the name, and neither of them is a flavour note. They describe how the leaf was grown and how it was bought, and anyone expecting the cup to taste of that will be hunting for something that was never there. What is actually in the mug is quiet: a soft hay-like sweetness, almost no grip, and a finish that stops early rather than drying the mouth out. The liquor pours pale straw with barely a green cast to it, so nobody should come to this expecting the bright jade of a Japanese sencha. That quietness is the useful part. A green tea with nothing to fight is the one you can put next to food, which is why this gets drunk after lunch and through the afternoon rather than studied. Anyone who wants savour and weight from a green cup will find it thin, and wants something with ground leaf in it instead. It does carry caffeine, which surprises people who file green tea alongside the herbals. Eighty bags of something this undemanding will not sit around.
Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea, in brief.
Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea is a soft, quiet everyday green from the Dorset tea company, picked into the teas.co.uk curator selection as the green tea to buy if green tea has previously disappointed you.
What makes it worth owning is not nuance but tolerance. Brewed too hot or left too long it flattens rather than turning metallic and bitter, which is the failure that puts most people off green tea in the first place.
Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea is the green tea to buy if green tea has previously disappointed you. That is not a tasting note, it is the actual reason to own it. Most people who say they do not like green tea have been served one brewed with water straight off the boil and left too long, which turns almost any green leaf metallic and hard. This one is unusually forgiving about exactly that, and forgiveness is worth more in a kitchen than any amount of nuance.
What is in the cup is soft and quiet: a light grassy sweetness, almost no grip, and a short clean finish. It is not a complex tea and it does not pretend to be one.
Curator notes: the profile is ours, worked out from the current box and what Clipper publish about this green tea. We normally dispatch this organic green in 1 to 2 working days. Storage, water temperature and how to serve it alongside food are also published in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind Clipper
Clipper is a Dorset tea company that built its name on organic and Fairtrade sourcing at a time when neither was standard on a British tea shelf, and on unbleached tea bags when most of the trade was still using bleached paper. That positioning is the brand.
According to the published pack listing this is an organic and Fairtrade green tea, and both words are in the product's own name. We scored grassy sweetness, forgiveness, astringency and depth ourselves, judging the 80 bag box against Clipper's own description.
Packaging: Look on the box for disposal guidance covering both carton and bags, and follow your local council's rules alongside it.
What You Are Actually Buying
- Count and weight: 80 bags in 160g, which is 2g a bag. That is the standard green tea bag weight, sized for a cup rather than a pint mug.
- A daily drinker, not a special occasion: eighty bags is roughly a month in a two-person house that drinks green tea at lunch. Buy it to be drunk, not kept.
- Drunk clear: no milk, no sugar. A slice of lemon is fine and a slice of ginger in the cup is better than it sounds.
- What it is not: not a matcha, not a single-garden Japanese sencha, and not caffeine-free. It is a straightforward green tea bag that is hard to get wrong.
Getting It Right in the Cup
- Water temperature: 80 degrees, not boiling.
- Measure: one bag per 200ml.
- Steep: two minutes, and it will forgive you a good deal more than that.
- Service: clear, or with lemon or a slice of fresh ginger.
- Storage: sealed, dry and dark. Green tea fades faster than black, so an eighty-bag box wants finishing within a few months of opening rather than kept for a year.
- Best with: steamed rice, white fish, plain biscuits, or fresh fruit after a meal.
Source: teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea, 80 Tea Bags 160g, 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: Look on the box for disposal guidance covering both carton and bags, and follow your local council's rules alongside it.
Our commitment to the planet
The taste profile
How does it compare
Green tea is brewed cooler and shorter than black tea, and almost everything that goes wrong with it comes from ignoring that. This particular blend is more tolerant than most, which means the advice below makes it better rather than making it drinkable.
The Everyday Cup
Green Tea With Food
Made with this tea
The Forgiving Cup
How to make The Forgiving Cup with Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea.
- 1 bag Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea
- 200ml water at 80 degrees
- A slice of lemon or fresh ginger, optional
- Boil the kettle and leave it three or four minutes, or add two tablespoons of cold water to the empty cup.
- Pour 200ml over one bag and steep for two minutes.
- Lift the bag out without squeezing it.
- Drink clear, or add a slice of lemon or a coin of fresh ginger.
What you'll end up with: A pale straw cup with a soft grassy sweetness and a short clean finish. Three minutes will not hurt it. Five will only flatten it.
Overnight Cold Brew Jug
Four bags of Clipper green, steeped cold in a lidded jug overnight in the fridge.
- 4 bags Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea
- 750ml cold water
- A lidded jug
- A sprig of mint, optional
- Drop 4 bags into 750ml of cold water, lid on, into the fridge.
- Leave overnight, or at least six hours.
- Lift the bags out and add a sprig of mint if you have one.
What you'll end up with: Sweeter and rounder than the hot cup with no grip at all, because cold water never pulls the harsh compounds out. Keeps three days.
Green Tea and Ginger for a Sore Throat
How to make Green Tea and Ginger for a Sore Throat with Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea.
- 1 bag Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea
- 250ml water at 80 degrees
- 3 coins of fresh ginger
- 1 teaspoon of honey plus a little lemon juice
- Drop three coins of fresh ginger into the mug and pour 250ml of 80 degree water over them.
- Wait two minutes, then add the tea bag for a further two.
- Stir in a teaspoon of honey and a squeeze of lemon once the bag is out.
What you'll end up with: A warm, gently spiced drink. Giving the ginger a head start is the trick: it needs longer in the water than the tea does.
Green Tea Rice
How to make Green Tea Rice with Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea.
- 2 bags Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea
- 400ml water at 80 degrees
- 200g rice, rinsed
- A good pinch of salt
- Brew 2 bags in 400ml at 80 degrees for 4 minutes, then lift them out.
- Cook the rinsed rice in the tea instead of water, with a good pinch of salt.
- Rest it covered for five minutes off the heat before forking through.
What you'll end up with: Rice with a faint savoury greenness to it, very good under grilled fish.
Green Tea Poached Chicken
How to make Green Tea Poached Chicken with Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea.
- 4 bags Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea
- 1 litre water
- 2 chicken breasts
- Ginger, spring onion and a pinch of salt
- Brew 4 bags in a litre of water at 80 degrees for 5 minutes, then lift them out.
- Add sliced ginger, spring onion and salt, and bring the liquid to a bare shiver, never a boil.
- Slide the chicken breasts in, cover, and take the pan off the heat for 20 minutes.
- Check the chicken is cooked through before slicing.
What you'll end up with: Chicken poached to a clean, faintly grassy savour rather than boiled to nothing.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Component | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Green tea | The whole of the blend | Everything in the cup: the light grassy sweetness, the pale straw colour, the short clean finish and the caffeine. Nothing is blended in alongside it. |
| Leaf per bag | 2g | Our arithmetic on 160g across 80 bags. The standard green tea bag weight, sized for a cup rather than a pint mug. |
| Added flavouring | none | A plain unscented green tea. There are no fruit pieces or petals in the bag, and neither flavouring nor sugar is added. |
Ingredients and allergens. Clipper's single published ingredient, organically grown green tea, sits outside the 14 major allergens. Allergy advice can be reworded, so trust the box in front of you over this page.
Ingredients, as published for this product: Organically Grown Green Tea, Tea: Traded in compliance with Fairtrade Standards, total 100%.
Ingredient and nutrition information for this product, as published on the manufacturer's label. The carton in your cupboard outranks anything printed here.
Pack: Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea, 80 Tea Bags 160g; a light caffeinated green tea, GTIN 5021991979019. Store sealed, dry and dark, and finish it within a few months of opening. Clipper print the ingredient declaration and certification marks on the carton, along with the bag material and a best before date.
Characterising components shown. What we say about the cup draws on the 80 bag box and on Clipper's published description.
Sourcing & blend. Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea, 80 Tea Bags 160g is put together by Clipper, the Dorset tea company that built its name on organic and Fairtrade sourcing at a time when neither was standard on a British tea shelf, and on unbleached tea bags when most of the trade still used bleached paper. That positioning is the brand.
What's in Clipper Fairtrade Organic Green Tea, 80 Tea Bags 160g, and what isn't:
- In: green tea leaf in a bag, at 2g a bag, with nothing blended in alongside it.
- No artificial colours, preservatives or added sugar: plain, unscented green leaf, with nothing in it that needs sweetening or colouring. Any sweetness in the cup is natural to the leaf.
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 Organic Green Tea, 80 Tea Bags 160g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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