Jasmine I thought - not camomile as I find that yuck and I quite fancied some of the tea after all the chat about it.

How evil was that women selling the tea, standing nonchalantly swigging on a cuppa whilst demanding £900? And why was she standing outside the shop?

I agree, thought it was well out of order. What goes around though..........

So she parcelled up any old junk, labelled it Camomile and tried to sell it for £900 odd ?

Not a great advert for her is it?

My mistake earlier - it was chamomile - and she does sell it
Chamomile tea

£2.75 for 25grammes

Which would make it £1,100 for 10 kilos - so she was doing them a deal after all (unless my maths is up the swanny)

She doesn't have a shop. They give her the money and then she does a runner

teas can fetch that price, especially in the far east where they take their tea very seriously.

Bit I think the lady did a considerable mark up on her prices.

Hi, they're a lantern type shape, which encloses a small orange berry, about the size of a grape. I bought a packet of them from a supermarket, as I heard they're good for my health. The orange berry has a tart orange taste. I'd say there are about 20 of them in a packet, and cost £1.35 or so. When they dry out, the outer casing gets hard, and the inside berry turns to mush.

10% discount for 5 or more packs!

You can tell she is pretentious using the "h".

The penalty for not getting an item is the guide price plus £50. Next year's lot need to sourceand buy good deals for the most expensive items first. If you don't get it, the other team can afford to overpay by loads if it is one of the priciest items. So if you have to travel across london for something that should cost about £500, it's well worth failing to get 2 or 3 items that should cost less than £100.


Unless they change the penalty structure next year. And assuming you know what a cloche or a Physilis is

It was only that expensive because it was handpicked by a lovely Turkish teafarmer who wants nothing but the best and so the bulk of that 990 pounds will surely go to the lovely Turkish teafamer for all his work...

Maybe the lovely Turkish teafarmer watched the programme and decided he too could raise his prices for handpicking only the best chamomille in Turkey

Hope her appearance backfires on her ass and she goes out of business.

It's under the Herbal Teas section, selling for £2.75 per 25g – which works out at £445.50 (with 10% bulk discount) for 4.5kg. And that's to normal customers, not trade.

I saw it as the tea lady doing them a deal and taking the loss. She probably weighed it up against the advertising from the show (which lets face it has now made her company about a million times more well known).

She carefully made sure she had the company logo visible, was dressed up, even had a cup of tea in her hand etc. This was a big chance to advertise her company and was well worth a 500 quid discount.

I think Lord Sugar was wrong to suggest that this discount somehow meant their tea was overpriced to start with. It was business.

Sugar is a past master at selling overpriced garbage so he should know.

Thats business for you, she did drop the price drastically, and I think they were just desperate to do the deal and get the tea.

This task highlights how utterly ridiculous it is not to allow them internet access. Any sensible buyer would identify the basic wholesale and retail price ranges for an item before looking to locate and get an idea of prices at those locations. That would all be done on-line and if Lord Alan was really interested in his 'partner's' business abilities he's be testing those research skills as much as their ability to barter a few quid off like barrow boys at the point of sale.

But it's a TV show, and there are few things more boring than watching people using computers, and certainly no drama in the teams knowing exactly what shops to go to, and exactly what the list prices are so they can negotiate properly. The task is primarily about initiative and instinct... and luck!

How true

I had exactly the same thought myself last night

Yeap, I would have liked to have seen a bit more of the Savoy guy examining the goods and then his feedback to LA. It would have been good if he'd rejected something due to lack of quality even if the team got a good price for it.

I'm in favour on banning internet. It means you gave to find more inventive ways to find things out.

Banning the internet makes it more of a challenge.

I agree but I think they should clearly state that rule rather than have the dimmer half of the population assuming that the candidates are so stupid that it doesn't occur to them to google.

Or does it? It is perfectly possible to find out all the information required without using the internet - just more time consuming and requiring a bit of lateral thinking. To do the research on-line would make the sourcing far too easy

I'd have rung or visited Taylors - they seem helpful people and they could have told the candidate what they would charge and what others might - some high-end suppliers are quite happy to emphasise quality and say that 'of course you can buy inferior stuff cheaper - ChavCo for example sells an inferior product for £1'