![\"Tea](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/0_proxy.jpg\")
Tea grower Tam O’Braan, Dalreoch Farm, Amulree, Perthshire.<\/p>\nThomas Robinson supplied Edinburgh\u2019s Balmoral and other big hotels with \u201cauthentically Scottish\u201d single-estate tea.Tea grower Tam O’Braan, Dalreoch Farm, Amulree, Perthshire.<\/p>\n
A conman was behind<\/a> bars last night for a \u00a3550,000 fraud in which he sold luxury \u201cScottish-grown\u201d tea to posh hotels \u2013 that he\u2019d bought from overseas.<\/p>\n Thomas Robinson supplied<\/a> Edinburgh\u2019s Balmoral and other big hotels with \u201cauthentically Scottish\u201d single-estate tea from his Wee Tea Plantation. The chancer even claimed tea he supplied to five-star The Dorchester in London was \u201cthe Queen\u2019s favourite\u201d.<\/p>\n The reality was not unlike Del Boy Trotter\u2019s Peck-ham Spring<\/a> scam in the TV comedy Only Fools and Horses, where Del fills bottles with water from his kitchen tap to sell on \u2013 at a considerable profit.<\/p>\n Robinson, 55, rented a former sheep farm in \u00adPerthshire<\/a> where he planted tea plants for show then imported more than a ton of tea from overseas and repacked it.<\/p>\n One expert said a kilo of quality tea from Africa could be sold for 100 times what it cost if it was passed off as being grown in Scotland. The scale of Robinson\u2019s<\/a> lies was laid bare in a three-and-a-half-week long case at Falkirk Sheriff Court.<\/p>\n He was found guilty of defrauding tea growers<\/a> of \u00a3274,354 and the hotels and tea companies of \u00a3278,634 \u2013 a total of nearly \u00a3553,000 \u2013 between January 2014 and February 2019.<\/p>\n Robinson denied the crimes, claiming \u00adpaperwork for his defence had been destroyed in a flood and his \u00adelectronic records had been lost. The conman, also known as Tom O\u2019Braan, bought tea plants<\/a> from a nursery in Sussex called Plants4Presents.<\/p>\n He carried out his scam by showing tea plants<\/a> to buyers such as those acting for Fortnum and Mason of London, where the wealthiest in society like to shop.<\/p>\n Other victims who bought the Wee Tea Plantation\u2019s<\/a> supposedly single-estate \u00adScottish-grown tea products included France\u2019s oldest tea house, Mariage Fr\u00e8res.<\/p>\n He claimed to have found a way of making his tea grow in half the usual time at the former kitchen garden at Dalreoch Farm, at Amulree in Perthshire, using a \u201cspecial \u00adbiodegradable<\/a> poly-mer\u201d which the prosecution said looked like a black bin liner.<\/p>\n He claimed to have given a presentation on his methods to the Royal Horticultural Society.<\/p>\n The tea menu at the Balmoral Hotel\u2019s Palm Court, based on descriptions Robinson gave them, boasted: \u201cOur \u00adScottish grown teas come from gardens in our farming<\/a> \u00adheartlands in Perthshire and Dumfries and Galloway.\u201d The teas had names including Dalreoch White, Silver Needles, Scottish Antlers Tea, and \u00adHighland Green.<\/p>\n Robinson spun customers lies that his company had sold tea to Kensington Palace and that he was a former rugby star and multi-millionaire.<\/p>\n He also claimed to be a polymer scientist, had invented<\/a> the \u201cBag For Life\u201d, served in the Army in bomb dis-posal and worked for ex-US president Barack Obama\u2019s administration on a maize project. Prosecutors described this as \u201cthe CV of a \u00adfantasist\u201d.<\/p>\n The court heard Robinson disguised that he was repackaging foreign tea and selling it on by getting it \u00addelivered to a mailbox address in Glasgow registered to a company called \u201cThomas James Consultants\u201d.<\/p>\n He also paid through a joint personal<\/a> bank account, not the business account of The Wee Tea Plantation. Robinson managed to sow success stories in the Press.<\/p>\n He appeared on a BBC podcast, telling presenter Mark Stephen he had learned<\/a> to quickly grow tea plants by restricting UV light. An expert later said this would kill them. Robinson also claimed to have produced tea plants at his farm from cuttings and seed.<\/p>\n Between 2015 and 2018 he supplied 22,000 plants<\/a> to a dozen other growers in Scotland and one in Jersey at \u00a312.50 each. The jury heard that over the period he was actually importing tea plants at \u20ac3 each from a \u00adhorticulturalist in Italy.<\/p>\n He either passed them off as Scottish-grown or allowed his customers to assume they were. Many died or did not thrive, and yields were a fraction of what Robinson\u2019s<\/a> customers expected.<\/p>\n One grower, Henry Baggott, 45, an antique dealer<\/a>, who bought thousands of plants for his wife\u2019s family farm near Castle Douglas, said Robinson had told him he could expect to be picking his first tea at the end of a year.<\/p>\n Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today.<\/p>\n You’ll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland.<\/p>\n No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team.<\/p>\n All you have to do is click here if you’re on mobile<\/strong><\/a>, select ‘Join Community’ and you’re in!<\/p>\n If you’re on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click ‘Join Community’.<\/p>\n We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don\u2019t like our community, you can check out any time you like.<\/p>\n To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose ‘exit group’.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.<\/a><\/p>\n He promised an eventual yield of 100 kilos (220lb) of top-quality tea plus<\/a> 450kg (992lb) of secondary leaf for blends. After battling for seven years, the Baggotts finally managed to harvest just 100g (less than 4oz) of finished tea.<\/p>\n Robinson claimed that with the exception<\/a> of 15,000 plants sold to a grower in Jersey, all the Italian plants had been in \u00adScottish ground for a period and that made them Scottish. The scam began to unravel in 2017 after Perth and Kinross Council tried to locate Robinson\u2019s food processing licence.<\/p>\n When a Scottish Government adviser asked about plant \u00adpassports, he insisted all the plants were for his own use, then tried to cover up by sending a story to the local Press claiming \u00adthousands<\/a> of his plants had been stolen. Prosecutor Joanne Ritchie said Robinson formed \u201ca scheme to deceive and make money on the basis of lies\u201d.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cWhen you look at what he was actually<\/a> doing, the suggestion that this was genuine Scottish tea or these were \u00adScottish-grown plants is almost laughable.<\/p>\n \u201cHe lied to every single witness who encountered him, but more than that he lied to the population at large, to the people who had been buying this tea on the understanding<\/a> it was Scottish.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson, of Amulree, \u00adPerthshire, insisted he had done no wrong. He told the jury: \u201cI wanted to leave something that would stand in the history of tea.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"
Thomas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/0_proxy-2.jpg\")
\nThomas Robinson supplied high-end customers such as Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel and the Dorchester in London with varieties with names like Dalreoch White, Highland Green, Silver Needles and Scottish Antlers Tea.<\/p>\n![\"Tea](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/0_proxy-1.jpg\")
Tea grown at Dalreach Farm, Amulree Perthshire ready to brew<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/0_WACOMMUNITYQR3.jpg\")
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