 | |
| Industry | Tea |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1869 |
| Founder | Arthur Brooke |
| Headquarters | United Kingdom |
| Parent | Lipton Teas and Infusions |
Brooke Bond is a brand of tea owned by Lipton Teas and Infusions, formerly an independent tea-trading and manufacturing company in the United Kingdom, known for its PG Tips brand and its Brooke Bond tea cards. [1]
Brooke Bond & Company was founded by Arthur Brooke, who was born at 6 George Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, England, in 1845. In 1869, he opened his first teahouse at 23 Market Street, Manchester. [2] Brooke chose the business name because it was his 'bond' to his customers to provide quality teas, hence Brooke Bond. The firm expanded into wholesale tea sales in the 1870s. [2]
In 1903, Brooke Bond launched Red Label in British India. [3]
In 1908 Brooke Bond set up the Berkshire Printing Company Ltd, based in Reading, as the company’s printing division for tea packeting of its products and, notably, the tea cards which they contained. This also expanded from the 1930s to include production of playing cards by high quality lithography. [4]
The company opened a packing factory in Goulston Street, Stepney, London, in 1911. [5]
Brooke Bond's most famous brand is PG Tips, launched under the name Pre-Gest-Tea in 1930. [6] [7]
By 1957, Brooke Bond was probably the largest tea company in the world, with one third share of both the British and Indian tea markets. [8]
In 1972, Brooke Bond launched Laojee in Sri Lanka. [9]
The company merged with Liebig in 1968, becoming Brooke Bond Liebig, which was acquired by Unilever in 1984. The Brooke Bond name was significantly decreased by Unilever, however, the Brooke Bond tea brand was reintroduced on sale in 2019 in the UK, for its 150th anniversary, [10] after a 20 year absence. [11]
Gold Crown Foods Ltd was licensed by Unilever to use the Brooke Bond name for the Brooke Bond 'D' and Brooke Bond Choicest brands. [12] Today, the licence for D Tea is held by Typhoo, who used to sell it through their website – it had identical packaging to before minus the words 'Brooke Bond', although it is not currently available. It was also regularly sold across Britain in Poundland stores. The Brooke Bond brand is still used in other countries, especially in India. [13] In Pakistan, Brooke Bond Supreme is the number-one-selling tea brand. Unilever markets it as being stronger than its Lipton Yellow Label blend.
In North America Brooke Bond's primary product was Red Rose Tea. Red Rose is still sold by Ekaterra in Canada, but in the United States is now marketed by Redco Foods.
The Brooke Bond factory is at Trafford Park near Manchester. [7]
In 2021, due to declining sales, Unilever sold the Brooke Bond and PG Tips brands to CVC Capital Partners in a £3.8bn deal. [14]
Brooke Bond Taj Mahal tea leaves are grown in estates of Upper Assam, Darjeeling and Tripura. It grows on the northern banks of Brahmaputra, which floods its banks every monsoon, creating a rich, humid soil. There is plentiful rain in the monsoon and humidity lasts through the year. The soil and weather together give Assam Tea its 'terroir' – a dark red brew, a strong malty flavor and deep body.
Brooke Bond Red Label, the Indian blend, is made in tea manufacturing units of Assam, Cooch Behar, Darjeeling and some parts of Meghalaya. The manufacturing process of tea includes the stages of withering (leaving tea leaves to dry), rolling/cutting (through which complex series of chemical changes known as oxidation are initiated), drying and then grading into sizes.
Brooke Bond Taaza is made of High Quality fresh Green Tea Leaves.
Brooke Bond Supreme is imported to Pakistan, made from Kenyan tea leaves.
Laojee became no 1. retail tea brand Sri Lanka. [15]
From 1954 until 1999, packets of Brooke Bond tea included illustrated cards, usually 50 in a series, which were collected by many children. One of the most famous illustrators of the cards was Charles Tunnicliffe, the internationally acclaimed bird painter. Most of the initial series were wildlife-based, including 'British Wild Animals', 'British Wild Flowers', 'African Wild Life', 'Asian Wild Life', and 'Tropical Birds'. From the late 1960s, they included historical subjects, such as 'British Costume', 'History of the Motor Car', and 'Famous Britons'. The last series in the 1990s concentrated on the Chimps of the TV adverts. Complete sets and albums in good condition are highly sought after collectors' items. The inclusion of these cards in packets of tea ceased in 1999. There were about 85 separate titles [16] issued around the world: 59 series issued in the UK (1954–1999), 17 series in Canada (1959–1974; 7 of these were also issued in the US, 1960–66), 6 series in what was Rhodesia (1962–66), and 3 series in South Africa (1965–67). Many of them have since been reprinted.
Complete list of UK sets
set no / Title / year of issue / number of cards in set
A tea bag or teabag is a small, porous, sealed bag or packet, typically containing tea leaves or the leaves of other herbs, which is immersed in water to steep and make an infusion. Originally used only for tea, they are now made with other tisanes as well.
Unilever PLC is a British multinational fast-moving consumer goods company founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of British soap maker Lever Brothers and Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie. It is headquartered in London.
Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is a British-owned Indian final good company headquartered in Mumbai. It is a subsidiary of the British company Unilever. Its products include foods, beverages, cleaning agents, personal care products, water purifiers and other fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs).
Tetley is an English beverage manufacturer founded in 1837 in Yorkshire. It is the largest company of tea in the United Kingdom and Canada, and the second largest in the United States by volume.
PG Tips is a brand of tea in the United Kingdom manufactured by Lipton Teas and Infusions.
Tinsukia district is one of the 34 administrative districts in the state of Assam, India. The district headquarters is located at Tinsukia city. The district occupies an area of 3790 km2.
Red Rose Tea is a beverage company established by Theodore Harding Estabrooks in 1894 in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. Estabrooks began his career in trade imports and exports, and soon moved specifically to the tea trade. Realizing the inconsistency in loose leaf servings, Estabrooks began packaging his tea leaves into single-serving bags to ensure quality and consistency in every teacup.
Arthur Brooke (1845–1918) founder of the British tea company Brooke, Bond & Co. Ltd born in Manchester, Great Britain. Established his business in 1869 and was making £5,000 a year at the age of 30 with shops in all the major cities of Britain and warehouse in London.
Unilever Pakistan Limited, formerly Lever Brothers Pakistan Limited(Urdu: یونی لیور پاکستان), is a Pakistani fast-moving consumer goods company based in Karachi. It is a subsidiary of the British multinational company Unilever.
Lipton is a British-American brand of tea, owned by Lipton Teas and Infusions. Lipton was also the name of a supermarket chain in the United Kingdom, owned by Allied Suppliers, which was sold to Argyll Foods in 1982, after which the brand was used only for tea. The company, which is named after its founder, Sir Thomas Lipton, who started the business it in 1890, was owned by Unilever for many decades until its sale to CVC Capital Partners in 2022. Lipton’s ready to drink beverages are sold by "Pepsi Lipton International", a company jointly owned by Unilever and PepsiCo.
Robin Banerjee was a wildlife expert, environmentalist, painter, photographer and documentary filmmaker who lived at Golaghat in the Indian state of Assam.
Molly Winifred Badham MBE was a co-founder of Twycross Zoo. She trained the chimpanzees who appeared on the Brooke Bond PG Tips television advertisements in the 1960s to the 1980s.
The Lipton Institute of Tea is a dedicated tea research facility owned by consumer goods company Unilever, which also owns the Lipton tea brand. The Institute conducts studies on the mental and physical health benefits of tea. As well as research conducted directly by the Institute, it also funds and coordinates research projects at academic and research institutions around the world.
Tata Consumer Products is an Indian fast-moving consumer goods company and a part of the Tata Group. Its registered office is located in Kolkata while its corporate headquarters is in Mumbai. It is the world's second-largest manufacturer and distributor of tea and a major producer of coffee.
Tapal Tea is a Pakistani tea company which is based in Karachi, Pakistan.
Sarah Nathalie Evans was an English businesswoman and conservationist with a particular interest in primates. In 1963 she co-founded the Twycross Zoo, Leicestershire. She began her career as a dog breeder and pet shop owner before merging her business with that of rival Molly Badham. The pair kept primates in their shared flat before moving, in 1954, to a larger house in Hints, Staffordshire where they established the Hints Zoological Gardens. Evans and Badham trained their chimpanzees to act out tea parties, which was noticed by the Brooke Bond tea company, who contracted the animals for a series of television advertisements for the PG Tips brand. After outgrowing Hints the pair moved their collection to Twycross, Leicestershire where they developed the largest primate collection outside of Japan. The Twycross Zoo became the first in the United Kingdom to breed colobus monkeys and bonobos and is now recognised as the World Primate Centre.
The Marquis Chimps were a group of trained chimpanzees that were used in variety shows and television programmes and commercials, initially in Britain and then in the United States, from the late 1940s to the 1980s. They were owned and trained by Gene Detroy.
In the United Kingdom, a number of varieties of loose tea sold in packets from the 1940s to the 1980s contained tea cards. These were illustrated cards roughly the same size as cigarette cards and intended to be collected by children. Some of the best known were Red Rose Tea, Typhoo tea and Brooke Bond cards, the latter of whom also provided albums for collectors to keep their cards in. In the brand named Brooke Bond Dividend D, the card was a dividend ("divvy") against the cost of the tea.
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