A Brief Look at Tetley Tea

One of my favorite brands of tea is made by Tetley, a fully-owned subsidiary of Tata Tea Limited. Tata Tea Limited is owned by the Tata Group, an Indian company that is spread over 40 countries and sells over 60 brands of tea. Tata Tea is the largest tea company in the United Kingdom and Canada and the second largest tea company in the United States.

Tetley Tea was purchased by the Tata Group in 2000 for 271 million pounds, and was one of the largest overseas acquisitions by an Indian company at the time. The Tata Group encompasses more than 90 companies worldwide; the Tetley acquisition greatly furthered the Tata Group's ambitions to become a global tea company. The newly-merged group is now the second-largest tea brand in the world, after Unilever, the producer of the Red Rose brand.

In 1822, Joseph and Edward Tetley began selling salt in Yorshire from a pack horse. They started to sell tea as well and became such a success that they set themselves up as tea merchants by 1837. Calling themselves "Joseph Tetley & Co," by 1856 they had relocated to London and had set themselves up as wholesale tea dealers. In 1953, Tetley was the first company to sell tea in tea bags to customers in the United Kingdom. In 1952, in an early example of cross-promotion, a song by Petula Clark called "Anytime is Tea-Time Now" was used to advertise Tetley on Radio Luxembourg.