Tea Brands

This shouldn’t be all that controversial, but it is. There are lots of conflicting views as to where tea originated. Some point to Southeast Asia, others to Eastern Africa. But if you took a poll of all tea experts, tea aficionados and the like, the Yunnan Province in China is the accepted spot. During the Shang Dynasty (1500 BC to 1046 BC) folks first started to sip on tea, mainly used as a medicinal drink. It later spread to Sichuan, and for the first time, people began to boil the leaves and mix additional herbs to arrive at something much more stimulating and remarkably like what we see today.

Imagine that, the tea you’re drinking today is not all that different than 1500 BC! You’re sipping it while reading the New York Times on your iPhone, but that’s secondary. Marco Polo began to spread tea around the world during the late 1200s. In 1557 Portugal established a trading port in Macau and the Dutch East India Company brought tea to Amsterdam in the early 1600s. Commercial production took off in India, spurred in large part by the British who financed the expansion and using Chinese seeds created a massive industry that still stands today.

Choosing a tea brand is personal, and thus ranking them is even harder. There are thousands of brands, if not tens of thousands. Tea is everywhere, and like coffee, the choice is up to you. Tetley is a British manufacturer and was widely considered the first brand to bring green and flavored tea to the market. Their distribution and production are across 40 plus countries and Tetley produced roughly 60 branded bags per year. Bigelow is a U.S. tea brand, producing a host of green, herbal, decaffeinated, iced, black and seasonal teas. The cool thing with Bigelow is their flavors, bringing to the table cinnamon, chocolate, blueberry, caramel, chai and apple. They all come in loose tea or tea bags as well as the new K-cup.

Bigelow can claim some notable awards as well. They were awarded the famed American Manufacturing Hall of Fame award in 2017 for their innovation in flavor branding, and the Brits have had their eye on Bigelow as they’ve been poaching customers annually at a rapid clip. Dilmah is a brand you’ve certainly seen on shelves. Its English Breakfast tea is a top seller, and while a relatively young brand (for the tea world, founded in 1974), this Sri Lankan powerhouse is likely one of the most skilled tea makers around. Moroccan mint green tea, caramel flavored tea, peppermint leaves, earl grey and of course green tea, it is plentiful and affordable, making Dilmah an excellent choice for any event.

Lastly, Twinings. What more can we say about the world leader? Twinings is a British force, a host of master blenders who are consistently on the cutting edge of the tea market. Wonder what that edge looks and feels like? Take a trip to the Twinings factory and you’ll see. They’ve got a range of products that frankly rivals nobody, hitting all the major categories with their fruit and green tea as the biggest sellers. Some estimate more than 10 million people worldwide enjoy these two flavors but Twinings is not resting on their laurels. They want to remain on top, and odds are, they will.

A great alternative or complement to coffee, tea is healthy, flavorful is as old as time. Break out a cup with your next scone, you won’t regret it!