The £10 cuppa

Sometimes a good old-fashioned cup of PG Tips just isn't good enough. For the sophisticated tea-lover sometimes only the rarest of hand-picked teas will do, made from the tenderest of tea plants and flown over from China at huge expense.

That'll be £10, please. As the trend for ever more obscure teas sweeps the capital, restaurants are cashing in by charging as much as a tenner for a pot of tea for one.

It is not just any tea, however. It is white silver needle tea, not only said to have anti-ageing and anticancer properties, but so rare that it was once grown only in one town in south-east China.

Tea merchant Edward Eisler, who flies out to see the crop being harvested every April, said: "White tea is quite special. It is an absolute connoisseur's tea. It has a melon-ish aroma and a sweet taste and must be made with great care and not stored for long.

"White tea was originally only made in one town, Fuding, in the south-eastern province of Fujian. The best varieties still come from China because they have centuries of expertise."

Mr Eisler is boss of London's main supplier of white silver needle tea, Jing Tea in Brixton, whose customers include Harrods, the Lanesborough, the Fat Duck, Virgin upper class and Coutts Bank.

He sells 50g of silver needle for £5.25 - although by the time it reaches the King's Road restaurant Eight Over Eight it has become £10 for a pot.

Even for restaurant critic AA Gill and partner Nicola Formby, a couple used to the finer things in life, that proved a touch on the expensive side.

Ms Formby was so "incensed" at the item, Gill said in his Sunday Times column, that they refused to pay and she demanded a "surly" manager remove it.

Today, a spokesman for the restaurant, owned by Australian Will Ricker, who also owns E&O in Notting Hill and XO in Belsize Park, was unapologetic.