The tea is beautiful. The provenance certificate is a lie. And someone just killed to protect both.

Spring has come to Maplewick, and with it the first-flush Darjeeling that Lila Hartwell has been waiting for since January. When the regional Tea Trade Showcase arrives at the guildhall and Lila is invited to pour, she expects to spend the evening doing what she loves best: putting exceptional tea in front of people who know how to appreciate it.

What she doesn’t expect is to recognise a fraud.

The showcase’s star lot – a coveted first-flush estate tea with a prestigious certificate and a price to match – isn’t what it claims to be. Lila can taste the difference. And when the senior broker overseeing that lot is found dead the next morning, Lila is the only person in Maplewick who understands what he knew and what it cost him.

With Detective Rowan Pierce working the case and the tea trade’s powerful players circling to protect their interests, Lila must untangle thirty years of quiet deception before the killer realises that a woman who can identify a tea by its leaf alone might be able to identify much more than that.

For readers who love Laura Childs, Jenn McKinlay, and Ellery Adams – a warm, clever whodunit where the clues are in the cup and justice is steeped slowly.

The Honeyleaf Tea Room Mysteries, Book 3. Standalone mystery. Fair-play clues. Clean, cozy read.