Renowned loose leaf tea experts T2 and enigmatic design duo Raw Edges have joined forces for London Design Festival 2016, creating a set of limited edition packaging for some of T2’s most popular brews. The award-winning design team whose often playful style explores colours, patternmaking and movement, have created bespoke pieces for three of T2’s core range of teas – Earl Grey Royale, Strawberries and Cream and Green Rose.

Bold and thought-provoking, each hand-drawn design reflects the journey from raw tea to finished drink, taking inspiration from what’s on the inside and transforming it into a visual spectacle realised on the outside of each box. The designs explore the colours, smells, textures and shapes found in the raw ingredients that make up each tea and how they change during the brewing process. Alongside the limited packaging range, Raw Edges has created an adaptation of the design for a window display in T2’s Redchurch Street store, in Shoreditch.

Shay Alkalay, Raw Edges, comments:
“For us, this was an opportunity to focus on one of the most common yet graceful commodities – tea – to come up with a way of taking what’s on the inside and displaying it on the outside. We wanted to find inspiration in the tea itself and bring that to life in an interesting way.

“The challenge for us was that T2 has such a strong identity already. So we approached it a little differently, by looking at the journey from raw material to drinkable liquid tea. What was interesting to us, is that this is usually a very functional process for people. When we looked at it closely, the evolution of the texture and colour of the tea as it’s brewed is rather wonderful, so we wanted to show this in our end work.”

Rohan Young, Head of Creative at T2 said:
“For the last 20 years, design has been a fundamental building block for T2 – our orange and black motif has become synonymous with our offering. The exciting thing about partnering with a team like Raw Edges, is that we get to explore T2 from a different view point without shifting the focus away from the tea. Their take on our core tea is inspiring and it’s a fitting way for us to celebrate London Design Festival 2016.”