TEA TREASURES
...and wouldn’t sell his £160MILLION collection (including Nelson’s teapot) for all the tea in China
TEA is far more than a refreshing drink for Nirmal Sethia – it is a divine gift of life. Inspired by his late wife Chitra, who died just over five years ago, the owner of Newby Teas has amassed a collection of some 1,700 rare and valuable tea-related items worth up to an astonishing £160million.
Sethia says: ‘Tea is like a beautiful woman – not to be recognised for its appearance but valued for its character. It should be treated with respect and dignity. Tea is a mark of civilisation.’
Among his prized possessions is a silver teapot with a wooden handle engraved ‘N’ –a ‘bachelor teapot’ used by Admiral Horatio Nelson. It is now worth up to £200,000.
Sethia says: ‘Nelson appears to have drunk his tea exactly as one should – he did not have time for milk and sugar. Maybe, the character and power of tea helped him be victorious at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 against the French and Spanish.’
The 74-year-old began his love affair with tea at the age of 14 when he quit school in London to become a tea trader. Within a couple of years his expert nose for discovering the best teas in the world had been recognised and he had bought his own plantation in Assam, India. From a base in Calcutta he started selling top quality tea to Irish importers.
He says: ‘Tea is a divine gift from mother nature – and the second most popular drink after water. It saddens me that in this modern age the quality of tea being sold has gone down rather than up – with tea bags sometimes including stale sweepings and dust.
‘Unfortunately there is a tendency to focus more on marketing than what is inside the packaging. I run the only company that stores tea in a humidity and temperature controlled environment – this is essential for top quality tea.’
Sethia believes tea is such a precious elixir that consumers should be prepared to pay extra for the treat rather than just being lured in by price. Newby Teas tea bags cost about 40p each compared to other high street brands that can cost as little as 3p.
His collection dates back as far as 3,000 BC with pots once used for brews by the Indus Valley civilisation in India.
Tea was first introduced by Chinese emperor Shen Nung after leaves from a camellia sinensis tree blew into his drink of boiled water in around 2,737 BC. It did not become a national drink in China until the Tang Dynasty between 618 and 907AD. The British had to wait until the 17th Century to enjoy a fresh cup of tea – a treat only the wealthiest could afford. But it was in the Victorian era, when the Chinese tea monopoly was broken by cheaper tea exports from India, that it became the country’s national drink.
Sethia owns priceless Chinese cups – where tea was often sipped from small bowls rather than handled mugs. A rare 15th Century Ming Dynasty cup similar to one in his private collection sold for a record-breaking £27million in 2014. He also owns a silver and enamel Fabergé tea caddy from the early 20th Century. It could have been used by the Romanov royal family and is worth up to £800,000.
Among the most historic teapots in Sethia’s ‘Chitra’ collection is a silver gilt monkey trinkspiel that was made in Germany around 1600, now valued at £750,000. It was the inspiration for a celebrated porcelain monkey teapot design made by potter Meissen just over a century later that now commands a price of £10,000.
In the collection is also a 19th Century 12-piece tea service made by French porcelain manufacturer Sevres and painted by Antoine Beranger. It was presented to the Duchess de Berry by King of France Louis XVIII who paid 9,650 francs for the tea set. It is now worth up to £3million. Other teapots in the collection that belonged to the rich and famous include a late 18th Century silver teapot and stand given to Lady Churchill on her wedding by Winston Churchill’s wartime office.
Sethia admits he has a weakness for the modern jewel-encrusted teapots he has designed in honour of his wife. His favourite is a moon teapot, worth £1million. He says: ‘It is decorated with a scene of the moon over the ocean that I had made in Italy four years ago in memory of Chitra.’