Yorkshire Tea facts for kids
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| Owner | Bettys & Taylors Group |
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| Introduced | 1977 |
| Tagline | "Where everything's done proper" "Let's have a proper brew" |
Yorkshire Tea is a black tea blend produced by the Bettys & Taylors Group since 1977. It is the most popular traditional black tea brand sold in the UK. In 1886 Charles Edward Taylor Founded CE Taylor & Co., later shortened to "Taylors", the company was purchased by 'Betty's Tea Rooms' which today forms Bettys & Taylors Group. Taylors of Harrogate is still based in Harrogate, Yorkshire, in the first 'Betty's' tea room. The group is still owned by the family of Bettys' founder, Fredrick Belmont and is currently chaired by Lesley Wild. The company is one of the few remaining family tea and coffee merchants in the country, whilst competing with the British-owned PG Tips (Unilever) and Tetley (Tata), where Yorkshire Tea is now the most purchased tea brand in the UK, overtaking Twinings (Associated British Foods) and Typhoo.
Products
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Yorkshire Tea uses varieties of tea grown in India, Sri Lanka, and Kenya, blended to form eight blends: Yorkshire Tea, Yorkshire Decaf, Yorkshire Hardwater (available in the United Kingdom) Yorkshire Gold, Breakfast Brew, Bedtime Brew, Biscuit Brew and Toast and Jam Brew
In 2016 the brand launched Breakfast Brew, Breaktime Brew and the decaffeinated Bedtime Brew. Yorkshire Tea introduced Biscuit Brew, a malty favoured tea, to its range in 2018 and Toast and Jam Brew in 2020.
The Yorkshire Tea brand is being extended to include a range of cakes, biscuits, and fruit loaves, sold as being complementary to drinking tea by its parent company The Bettys & Taylors Group, which owns cookery schools and tea rooms.
History
Charles Edward Taylor and his brother created their company, CE Taylor & Co., in 1886 which was later shortened to "Taylor's". The brothers later opened "Tea Kiosks" in the Yorkshire towns of Harrogate and Ilkley, and in 1962, local tea room competitor 'Betty's' took over 'Taylor's', renamed it 'Taylors of Harrogate' and formed the Bettys & Taylors Group, which is still owned by the family of Fredrick Belmont, who founded 'Bettys Tea Rooms'. The Group now uses the 'Bettys' and 'Taylors' brands in a number of industries including Yorkshire Tea and Taylors Coffee Merchants under the 'Taylors of Harrogate' name and Bettys Tea Rooms, Bettys Cookery School and Bettys Confectionery under the 'Bettys' brand.
Yorkshire Tea as a brand was launched in 1977, originally conceived as 'Yorkshire Tea for Yorkshire people, and Yorkshire water-types'. In the early days different blends were created and sold for different regions of Yorkshire where the hardness / softness of the water varied. Over time, and as the scale of the brand grew to be fully national, the product has evolved to one single blend in the standard orange-coloured pack. However, it retains a hard water variant in green-coloured packs to cater for those who live in hard water areas of the UK.
When Safeway was taken over by West Yorkshire-based Morrisons in 2004, commentators in the London press noted the amount of shelf space in one former Safeway store that was suddenly given over to Yorkshire Tea.
In 2009, the Prince of Wales granted Yorkshire Tea a Royal Warrant. The company has also sponsored ITV1's Yorkshire-based Heartbeat from 1998 to 2001.
By 2015, Yorkshire Tea was the third best-selling tea brand in Britain behind Tetley and PG Tips. By September 2017, it was the second best-selling brand behind PG Tips after having overtaken Tetley on sales in the traditional "black tea" market. In November 2019, it was revealed that Yorkshire Tea was now the number one selling brand of tea in the United Kingdom with 28% of the traditional black tea market.
