The Journal · Gifting
Secret Santa at work, done properly
What £10, £15, £20 and £28 actually buy, and the trick that gets five gifts for £28.
The name comes out of the hat in the second week of November and it is somebody you have spoken to twice. There is a cap of fifteen pounds. The deadline is the last Friday before everyone goes.
What usually happens next is a novelty mug, or a scented candle in a scent nobody chose, or chocolates that sit in the kitchen until February.
The short answer
At £7 a single 15g tea makes about fifteen cups, which is a fortnight of someone's afternoons. Two is £14 and sits inside most office caps. A gift card starts at £20, any gift box is £28 for five teas, and the Bespoke Blend is £30 with their name printed on the jar. Buy four get one free runs on 102 of the teas, so five separate gifts cost £28, which is £5.60 each.
What each budget actually gets
Office caps are usually £10, £15 or £20. All three buy something real here, because a 15g pouch of loose leaf is £7 and makes fifteen cups. The thing to avoid is spending the whole cap on one object nobody asked for.
Five gifts, one for every budget
Every tea is 15g, about fifteen cups, one heaped teaspoon per 200ml.
By the cap on the envelope
A 15g pouch, about fifteen cups. That is a fortnight of somebody's four o'clock, which is more use than anything else at this price. Pure Rose Petals or Jasmine Flower are £6.50 and look like a considered choice rather than a shop-floor grab.
One with caffeine for the morning and one without for after four. Thirty cups between them. This is the band most offices land on and the one where tea beats everything else in the shop.
The Glass Tea Infuser is £12 and it is the thing that turns loose leaf from a faff into a lift-and-pour. Add any £7 tea. They keep the infuser long after the tea is gone.
The gift card starts at £20. Not a cop-out when the person is a stranger: it is the only option where they pick the flavour, which is the part you cannot guess.
Any gift box is £28 for five 15g teas, around seventy-five cups. The Bespoke Blend is £30 and prints up to twenty-five characters on a glass jar, which is the only gift on this list that cannot be re-gifted.
The trick if you are the one organising
Buy four, get one free runs on 102 of the teas, automatically, with no code and no limit per order. Five single teas at £7 is £35, so you pay £28. That is five separate Secret Santa gifts at £5.60 each, wrapped in five different pouches.
Somebody in every office ends up buying for the people who forgot. If that is you, this is the maths that saves you. Ten teas means two are free, fifteen means three, because there is no cap on how many times it applies in one basket.
It also works if five of you club together and order in one go, which is the only version of Secret Santa admin that actually makes everyone better off.
How to pick for somebody you barely know
Avoid the two things that go wrong: caffeine late in the day, and a flavour that assumes something about them. A caffeine-free fruit tea is the safest gift in the shop, because it works for somebody pregnant, somebody who does not drink, somebody off caffeine, and somebody who just likes it.
- If you know nothing at all. A caffeine-free fruit blend. No assumptions, no bedtime problem, and it suits anybody who has said no to the pub this year.
- If they drink builder's tea all day. Best Breakfast Tea. Black tea and safflower petals, takes milk, and it is a better version of the thing they already like rather than a lecture about it.
- If they have a desk full of water bottles. Green Zing Vault, or anything cold brewed. Sharp rather than grassy, and it goes in cold water overnight.
- If the whole office is doing Dry January in four weeks. Anything hibiscus-led. Deep red in a glass, nothing in it, and they will remember who gave it to them in January rather than in December.
- If you drew the person who has everything. The Bespoke Blend, with their name on it. Twenty-five characters is enough for a running joke from the team chat.
Why tea survives the January clear-out
A Secret Santa gift has one real job: still existing in February. Tea does, because it gets used up rather than put somewhere. Fifteen cups at £7 is 47p a cup, which is less than the vending machine and considerably better.
The novelty mug goes in the cupboard behind the other mugs. The candle gets passed on. A pouch of loose leaf sits by the kettle and goes down, and the person who gave it gets remembered every time somebody asks what it is.
There is also the quiet point that it is the only thing on the usual Secret Santa list that is not a joke at somebody's expense.
Questions we get
What is a good Secret Santa gift for under £10?
A single 15g pouch of loose leaf tea, £6.50 to £7, which makes about fifteen cups. It gets used, it does not need to be the right size or colour, and it is the only thing at this price that lasts a fortnight rather than an afternoon.
What can I get for a £15 Secret Santa?
Two teas at £7 each is £14 and sits inside the cap. Pick one with caffeine and one without, so there is something for the morning and something for after four. That is thirty cups.
What about a £20 budget?
The Glass Tea Infuser at £12 plus any £7 tea comes to £19. The infuser is the part they keep. A Boteane gift card is also exactly £20 and lets them choose.
Is a gift card a cop-out for Secret Santa?
Not when you drew somebody you have spoken to twice. Flavour is the one thing you cannot guess, and a card at £20 hands that decision back to them.
What is the cheapest way to buy several Secret Santa gifts at once?
Buy four, get one free runs on 102 Boteane teas with no code and no limit per order. Five teas at £7 each costs £28 instead of £35, which is £5.60 a gift. Ten teas means two are free.
What is a safe Secret Santa gift for a colleague I do not know?
A caffeine-free fruit tea. It works for somebody pregnant, somebody not drinking, somebody avoiding caffeine, and somebody with no restrictions at all, and it assumes nothing about them.
What is a good Secret Santa gift for someone who has everything?
Something with their name on it. The Bespoke Blend is £30 and prints up to twenty-five characters on a glass jar with a bamboo lid, so it is the one gift that cannot quietly be passed on to somebody else.
How many cups do you get from a £7 tea?
About fifteen, at one heaped teaspoon per 200 to 260ml. That works out around 47p a cup.
When should I order for a work Secret Santa?
Order by the end of November for an early-December exchange. Boteane's own Christmas order-by dates are published closer to the time, and the Bespoke Blend is blended to order so it is not a same-day gift.
Fifteen cups, four hundred and seventy pence, and nobody puts it in the cupboard.
See the gift rangeOr build five at once in the tea shop.
JoJo