Brooke Bond facts for kids
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| Industry | Tea |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1869 |
| Founder | Arthur Brooke |
| Headquarters | United Kingdom |
| Parent | Lipton Teas and Infusions |
Brooke Bond is a well-known brand of tea. It is currently owned by Lipton Teas and Infusions. For many years, Brooke Bond was an independent company in the United Kingdom. It was famous for its popular PG Tips tea and the special tea cards that came in its packets.
Contents
History
How Brooke Bond Started
Brooke Bond & Company was founded by Arthur Brooke. He was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, England, in 1845. In 1869, Arthur opened his very first teahouse in Market Street, Manchester. He chose the name "Brooke Bond" because it was his promise, or 'bond', to his customers to always provide high-quality teas. The company soon grew and started selling tea to other businesses in the 1870s.
Growing Bigger
In 1903, Brooke Bond launched a tea called Red Label in British India. A few years later, in 1908, the company started its own printing division called Berkshire Printing Company Ltd. This company printed the tea packets and, importantly, the famous tea cards that came inside them. They even started printing playing cards in the 1930s.
In 1911, Brooke Bond opened a large packing factory in Stepney, London.
Famous Tea Brands
Brooke Bond's most famous tea brand is PG Tips. It was first launched in 1930 under the name "Pre-Gest-Tea." By 1957, Brooke Bond had become one of the largest tea companies in the world. It sold a huge amount of tea, holding about one-third of the tea market in both Britain and India. In 1972, Brooke Bond also launched a tea called Laojee in Sri Lanka.
Changes Over Time
In 1968, Brooke Bond joined with another company called Liebig, becoming Brooke Bond Liebig. Later, in 1984, a big company called Unilever bought Brooke Bond Liebig. For a while, the Brooke Bond name was used less often.
However, in 2019, the Brooke Bond tea brand was brought back to stores in the UK. This was to celebrate its 150th anniversary, after being away for 20 years.
Today, the Brooke Bond brand is still very popular in other countries, especially in India. In Pakistan, Brooke Bond Supreme is the top-selling tea brand. It is known for being stronger than Lipton Yellow Label tea.
In North America, Brooke Bond's main product was Red Rose Tea. Red Rose tea is still sold in Canada. The main Brooke Bond factory is located at Trafford Park near Manchester.
In 2021, due to changing sales, Unilever sold the Brooke Bond and PG Tips brands to another company called CVC Capital Partners.
Brands and Origins
Brooke Bond makes different kinds of tea, and each one comes from special places:
- Brooke Bond Taj Mahal tea leaves are grown in areas like Upper Assam, Darjeeling, and Tripura in India. These areas have rich, humid soil and lots of rain, which gives Assam Tea its unique terroir. This means it has a dark red color, a strong malty flavor, and a deep body.
- Brooke Bond Red Label is an Indian blend. It is made in tea factories in Assam, Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, and parts of Meghalaya. The tea-making process involves drying the leaves, cutting them, and then sorting them by size.
- Brooke Bond Taaza is made from high-quality, fresh green tea leaves.
- Brooke Bond Supreme is imported to Pakistan and is made from tea leaves grown in Kenya.
- Laojee became the number one retail tea brand in Sri Lanka.
Tea Cards
From 1954 until 1999, packets of Brooke Bond tea often included special illustrated cards. There were usually 50 cards in a complete set, and many children loved collecting them!
One of the most famous artists who drew these cards was Charles Tunnicliffe, who was known for his bird paintings. Many of the first card series were about wildlife, like 'British Wild Animals' or 'African Wild Life'. Later, in the 1960s, they started including historical topics, such as 'British Costume' and 'History of the Motor Car'. The very last series in the 1990s featured the Chimps from the TV adverts.
Complete sets of these cards and their special albums are now highly sought after by collectors. Brooke Bond stopped putting these cards in tea packets in 1999. About 85 different series were released around the world, with 59 series in the UK alone.
Complete List of UK Sets
Here is a list of the tea card sets released in the UK:
- B01 British Birds 1954 / 20
- B02 Wild Flowers – Series 1 1955 / 50
- B03 Out Into Space 1956 / 50
- B04 Bird Portraits 1957 / 50
- B05 British Wild Life 1958 / 50
- B06 Wild Flowers – Series 2 1959 / 50
- B07 Freshwater Fish 1960 / 50
- B08 African Wild Life 1961 / 50
- B09 Tropical Birds 1961 / 50
- B10 Asian Wild Life 1962 / 50
- B11 British Butterflies 1963 / 50
- B12 Wildlife In Danger 1963 / 50
- B13 Wild Flowers – Series 3 1964 / 50
- B14 Butterflies of the World 1964 / 50
- B15 Wild Birds in Britain 1965 / 50
- B16 Transport Through the Ages 1966 / 50
- B17 Trees in Britain 1966 / 50
- B18 Flags & Emblems of the World 1967 / 50
- B19 British Costume 1967 / 50
- B20 History of the Motor Car 1968 / 50
- B21 Famous People 1969 / 50
- B22 The Saga of Ships 1970 / 50
- B23 The Race into Space 1971 / 50
- B24 Prehistoric Animals 1972 / 50
- B25 History of Aviation 1972 / 50
- B26 Adventurers and Explorers 1973 / 50
- B27 The Sea – Our Other World 1974 / 50
- L01 Polyfilla Modelling Cards 1974 / 10 (no album – large cards)
- L02 Zena Skinner's International Cookery 1974 / 50 (no album – large cards)
- B28 Inventors and Inventions 1975 / 50
- B29 Wonders of Wildlife 1976 / 50
- B30 Play Better Soccer 1976 / 40
- B31 Police File 1977 / 40
- B32 Vanishing Wildlife 1978 / 40
- B33 Olympic Greats 1979 / 40
- B34 Woodland Wildlife 1980 / 40
- B35 Small Wonders 1981 / 40
- B36 Queen Elizabeth I – Elizabeth II 1983 / 50
- B37 Features of the World 1984 / 50
- B38 Incredible Creatures 1985 / 40 (wall chart only – no album)
- B39 30 Years of the Chimps – the Chimps Album 1986 / 12
- B40 Unexplained Mysteries of the World 1987 / 40
- B41 The Language of Tea 1988 / 12 (wall chart only – no album)
- B42 Discovering Our Coast 1989 / 50
- B43 The Magical World of Disney 1989 / 25
- B44 A Journey Downstream 1990 / 25
- B45 Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: Dimension X Escapade 1991 / 12
- B46 Olympic Challenge 1992 1992 / 40
- B47 Natural Neighbours 1993 / 40
- B48 The Dinosaur Trail 1993 / 20
- B49 40 Years of cards 1994 / 48 (mail order only – not included in boxes of tea)
- B50 Creatures of Legend 1994 / 24
- B51 Going Wild 1994 / 40
- B52 The Secret Diary of Kevin Tipps 1995 / 50
- B53 PG Chimps 40th Anniversary of Television Advertising 1996 / 40
- B54 Pyramid Power 1996 / 45
- B55 The Wonderful World of Kevin Tipps 1997 / 30
- B56 International Soccer Stars 1998 / 20
- B57 Oracle Cards 1999 / 19 (no album; cards were held over a hot cup of tea, the heat revealed a 'prediction')
- - Survey Card 1999 / 1 (survey to ask if customers wanted Brooke Bond to keep issuing sets of cards or not)
- - Thank You Card 1999 / 1
- - Farewell to PG Tips 1999 / 3
See also
