A conman who bought tea from around the world and sold it on to luxury shops and hotels as Scottish-grown has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.
Thomas Robinson, 55, rented land on a former sheep farm near Loch Tay and began supplying the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh with what he described as authentic Scottish tea.
He claimed he had been told that tea he supplied to London's five-star Dorchester Hotel was 'the Queen's favourite'.
He even bought tea plants from a nursery in Sussex and planted them for show in a former kitchen garden at Dalreoch Farm, Amulree, Perthshire, shortly before a visit from a buyer acting for the food store Fortnum & Mason.
Robinson said he had found a way to make his tea grow in half the usual time by using a 'special biodegradable polymer' - which the prosecution said looked like black bin liner - and claimed to have given a presentation on his methods to the Royal Horticultural Society.
