Cornish tea producer Tregothnan has won a deal that will see it exporting its range to the US and Kazakhstan in contracts worth a combined £145,000.

As the first ever English tea company to have created a range of black, green and herbal tea homegrown on British soil, it secured the contracts at a government networking event at 10 Downing Street.

Tregothnan’s US order, worth £95,000, has come from a leading hospitality business, increasing its sales to the country by 32 per cent since it started exporting there in 2010.

As part of the Kazakhstan deal, worth a further £50,000 with a leading distributor, Tregothnan was tasked with creating a bespoke English tea.

The estate can be found on the banks of River Fal, with tea found growing in small pockets all over the land as well as in larger plantations throughout south Cornwall.

Tregothnan pioneered a botanical first by nurturing rare plants, shrubs and Camellia Sinensis (tea plants) within its grounds’ warm and wet micro-climate to produce the most ‘British' tea in history.

It was a story that appealed to representatives from the US Embassy and the former Ambassador for Kazakhstan when they met the Tregothnan team at an event in May hosted by the Department for International Trade (DIT) and the Food is GREAT campaign, a joint initiative between Defra and the DIT to help more food and drink businesses export.

Jonathon Jones, managing director of trading at Tregothnan, said: “Kazakhstan is the largest consumer of tea with milk after the UK. The opportunities for English tea abroad are vast and our new orders in the US and Kazakhstan are testament to this.

“The various relationships we’ve fostered with contacts abroad, thanks to introductions made by DIT and the Food is GREAT campaign, have enabled us to leverage opportunities in markets with a tea-drinking culture, but also untapped markets where British tea is still making headway.

"Since our first overseas sale in 2006, we’ve evolved to become an export-led business. If we can export, you can too.”

Exports of food and drink from the South West totalled £228.5 million in the first quarter of 2019.

In recognition of its export success, Tregothnan was selected to be an Export Champion in March by the DIT, joining the nationwide Export Champion Community made up of businesses acting as ambassadors for overseas trade and offering practical advice and tips to other companies.

Since becoming an Export Champion, Tregothnan has been involved in a variety of trade activities, most recently supplying tea samples during a trade mission to the US and attending the International Trade Summer School where the company shared its exporting experiences with students.