You’ve got to hand it to some people when it comes to determination. Take Will Dixon, our wonderfully tall new trainee tea buyer who started on Tuesday – he gets 10/10. His is some story so let’s start at the beginning.

Will is a Yorkshire lad through and through and spent his first eight years on his father’s and uncle’s farm in Mirfield, Dewsbury, before upping sticks and moving up to a bigger farm near Duns in the Scottish Borders. Will then grew up looking after sheep, delivering lambs and growing wheat and barley. Proper man stuff. He later studied for a degree in Economics at Lancaster Uni then spent his next three years managing at Ladbrokes in Lancaster before returning to help his family out on the farm.

Now it gets a bit more glamorous. Will successfully applied to appear on the TV show ‘The National Lottery JetSet’ with his sister. Tasting fame, Will then went on to apply for others, and with some success. In fact you may recognise him from The Chase… Pointless… Total Wipeout… and even Countdown. Actually, he’s probably never off the telly.

“Total Wipeout was incredible. They picked me up, put me on a jet and I spent five days in Buenos Aires in Argentina, where it’s filmed. It was 40 degrees so I didn’t actually mind going in the water” revealed Will. We asked for a demonstration of his special moves but he declined. Another time maybe?

Will also competed on Countdown, hosted by Jeff Stelling, but narrowly lost on the conundrum. He did pick up the pen and dictionary but missed out on the top prize… a teapot.

In the Scottish Borders, half the TVs on Will’s farm picked up Scottish TV while the other half received English. This is important because two years ago, purely by chance, Will happened to be in a room with Look North on and there was a report featuring our expert tea buyer Suzy. Will’s ears pricked up when he heard Suzy say that they were looking for a new trainee tea buyer. Will thought: “I can do that – drink tea and travel the world”. So he applied and made it to interview but was just pipped to the teapot by our Henry, who you might know from ‘Henry’s Blind Tasting’ video. No hard feelings though.

Fast forward to February this year. Totally out of the blue, another trainee position became available at Yorkshire Tea and Will applied again. Straight after the hectic lambing season in April, Will and the other applicants each had individual interviews with all the tea buyers, group exercises and a tasting session involving a dozen different teas, all as before. Except on this occasion, Will was the successful candidate. He had finally landed his dream job and got his hands on the teapot he’d waited so many years for.

“They’re breaking me in easy. On my first day I attended a tea tasting hosted by Suzy at Bettys in Harrogate for fifty people that focused on the origins of tea and the various different factors that affect its taste and how tea is blended. It was fascinating stuff” said Will. He also went on to say “I’m really looking forward to working in a team and travelling to places I’ve never seen before – not your usual tourist destinations – where I’ll get insights into real countries.”

So that’s Will – do leave a message and say hi. He’s a cracking lad who has a bright tea buying future ahead of him here at Yorkshire Tea. And next time you have a proper brew, pop a bag in the pot, think of Will and make a wish. You never know, dreams do come true…