FOR most of us, everything stops for tea – but for Dorchester entrepreneur Joanna Davies, a good brew has proved the starting point for an increasingly successful and popular business venture.

Inspired by Parsons, a fragrant old-fashioned grocer’s shop that used to be situated in the town’s High East Street, in December 2010 Jo threw wide the doors of independent tea and coffee emporium The Gilded Teapot in Dorchester’s Tudor Arcade.

Situated in a former tobacconist and sweet shop and lined with shelf after shelf of piquant products and assorted beverage accoutrements including tea pots, drinking bowls and strainers, The Gilded Teapot is home to blends of more than 100 of the world’s finest and rarest loose-leaf teas. It also stocks produce from the Dorset Coffee Company.

Jo started to the business as a response to what she felt was an absence of speciality teashops.

“It is so easy to take a teabag, throw it in a cup and just add water but that’s not what it’s about. It’s the whole ritual that goes with tea drinking,” she said.

“Coffee is a social drink, quite a fast drink that you can take on the go, but tea is more relaxing. I think that’s why people offer tea in times of crisis – you have to sit down and take time to make and drink it.”

Drinkers whose idea of a good cuppa is limited to PG Tips or a mug of rooibos – red bush – if they are feeling adventurous, may need to expand their horizons. There are more than 154,000 different strains of plants producing tea and some of these, such as certain Darjeeling species, have up to four different seasonal harvests a year.

The Gilded Teapot sells ‘regular’ black teas that we all know and love – Assam, Ceylon, Darjeeling – plus flavoured and smoked varieties. Then there are the classic blends, flowering teas, fruit teas or tisanes, green tea, white tea, Oolong and Pu Erh, a Chinese speciality post-fermented tea much loved by celebrities.

“Our most popular tea is the Dorset Farmers Brew, which is a rich and gutsy blend of Assam, Ceylon and Sumatran leaves which peole love if they like a hefty brew with a slug of milk,” explained Jo.

“I don’t really have one favourite – it’s a bit like asking about someone’s favourite album. It all depends on your mood.”

Since Jo, who has also completed her advanced barrista training at the London School of Coffee, opened The Gilded Teapot with her partner Rob Crichard and friend Grace Guppy she has bucked the business trend and is seeing her business flourish.

You can buy take-away teas and coffees from the shop and Jo, who is planning to launch a new website later this summer, is considering opening a second branch and at the time of writing, was in the finals for the Langtry Manor Businesswoman of the Year Awards.

“Opening the shop was nerve-wracking,” she said. “It had started as a pipe dream and then my parents said they wanted to invest some money into the venture. I started to look for premises and when this place came up I decided I just had to do it.

“But I had people coming in the day I opened saying how could we sleep at night for worrying and that I’d be lucky if it did well. But you have to just brush it off because as long as you believe in what you are doing you can’t fail.”

Because Jo is currently running the shop single-handedly, she rarely has the opportunity to visit the places where her goods are sourced, although she is planning a mammoth tour of tea plantations and producers in Japan, India and China next year.

“With tea, as with most other foods, provenance and quality are becoming increasingly important to people,” said Jo.

“What I love is the fact that I can tell you where and when my teas were picked, right down to the actual day, and by whom.

“Tea is such an everyday thing in the UK, so it is good to make it that bit more exotic – and I think it’s marvellous that something picked right on the other side of the world is giving pleasure to people here in Dorchester. It’s just amazing.”