Teatime Tuesday: American Tea Companies

 

Teatime Tuesday: American Tea Companies

Continuing with my dive into tea companies thanks to our jigsaw puzzle, this month’s post is about American companies. (You can check out the post about British companies here: http://www.lindashentonmatchett.com/2026/07/teatime-tuesday-british-tea-companies.html.

We all know about the “Boston Tea Party” when hundreds of pounds of tea were dumped into Boston Harbor setting off events that led to the American Revolutionary War. Because of that, coffee became the drink of choice for most American citizens until the mid-1800s when congress imposed an import duty to help pay for the Civil War. For every pound of tea purchased, the federal government received fifteen cents. The duty on coffee was four cents per pound, but when the government became the primary buyer to supply the drink to soldiers, the market collapsed.

Savvy businessmen and marketers, George Gilman and George Huntington Hartford saw an opportunity

and changed the name of company from Gilman & Company to The Great American Tea Company. As one site put it, Gilman “assumed with the word “great” in the name people would assume it was a “great” company. He wasn’t wrong. By the end of 1862, they were operating five stores in New York City. The company continued to grow and after the war was renamed The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co. The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869 giving the company greater access to the rest of the nation. In honor of the railroad’s completion, the company adopted the acronym A&P. By 1878 A&P had stores in Buffalo, Baltimore, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Newark, and Washington, DC.

Other food products were soon added to the business, and by 1881, they had a chain of more than one hundred grocery stores and had a delivery route of more than 5,000 homes. By 1915, they operated more than 1,600 stores. Coffee was added to the mix, and by 1941 Eight O’Clock coffee was the best-selling brand worldwide. The tea company was no more.

Ferndell, another brand featured on the jigsaw puzzle, began in 1862 as part of the Sprague Warner Company as a retailer of coffee, tea, and spices. The company is said to have done well, but little information could be found other than to say it “shuttered its doors in the 1990s.”

R.C. Bigelow, Inc. (known as Bigelow Tea Company) was founded in New York City in 1945 by Ruth C. Bigelow and remains a family-run company today. Intriguingly, Mrs. Bigelow was an interior design, not a tea maker by trade. Her first tea was “Constant Comment,” a black tea flavored with orange rinds, a recipe inspired by a colonial tea recipe. Mention in The New York Times by food writer Jane Holt gave the tea the boost it needed to become highly popular. Sold for $0.75 for a 2 ¼ ounce bag, the tea was considered expensive until an article by food writer Clementine Paddleford touted that the tea is “so flavorful that three-quarters of a teaspoon makes six bracing cups of aromatic spiciness.”

The company did so well that by 1950, Ruth and David Bigelow sold their brownstone and moved to

Connecticut where they purchased a small factory in Norwalk. Five years later, nearly everything in the company was washed into the Norwalk River during a flood, but the family persevered, and several months later were able to recommence operations. In 1960, son David joined the firm, and the senior Bigelows retired. Constant Comment continued to be successful, but in 1974, the company introduced new flavors, all of which have been highly popular. To prevent the Charleston Tea Plantation being sold to developers, Bigelow purchased the land in 2003. The farm was the site of the first tea made entirely from US-grown leaves. Renamed the Charleston Tea Garden, the facility offers trolley tours of the gardens and walking tours of the factory.

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Swedish Sunrise (Coming September 15, 2026) 

Espionage. Diplomacy. Resistance. Is there any room for love?

Weeks after being accepted into America’s Office of Strategic Services, Birgit Westgard finds herself in Stockholm, Sweden - “Casablanca of the North.” The job is supposed to be easy: typing and filing. Then her handsome boss taps her to be his “plus-one” at social events where they collect intelligence, plant propaganda, and dance the nights away. How much longer can she remain impervious to his charm?

Silas Cronin is one of the lucky ones, and his plane crash lands in neutral Sweden. Bored with cooling his heels in an internment camp, he raises his hand when the government comes looking for someone who can type. Suddenly, he’s in Stockholm, mired in intrigue and subterfuge, and more than a little attracted to his new secretary who wants nothing to do with him. Is she right that wartime is no time for romance?

Pre-order link: https://books2read.com/u/3RRqyv

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%26P
https://www.britannica.com/money/Great-Atlantic-and-Pacific-Tea-Company-Inc
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/the-great-american-tea-company.178300/
https://blog.englishteastore.com/2013/04/16/companies-that-started-as-tea-sellers/
https://www.tedkennedywatson.com/2018/03/08/since-1862-ferndell-coffee/
https://www.bigelowtea.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Tea_Company
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEwMnyNUWTg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRvckzDCv_g

Photo Credits:  

Puzzle Poster: Author photo of poster

Advertising Circular: Public Domain

Constant Comment Box: By Own work by uploader; photo released under cc-by-sa-3.0 and GFDL, Fair use.

Charleston Tea Garden sign: By Own work by uploader; photo released under cc-by-sa-3.0 and GFDL, Fair use.