Topic of Tea Brand – Twinings

People love Twinings not only because of its high quality, but also because of its unique combination art. More than 300 years ago, Twinings began to customize tea for people in Strand, London. Since its development in 1706, Twinings’ blenders have blended nearly 500 kinds of tea. This allows people of different countries, ages and preferences to find their favorite tea in Twinings. Although it has gone through more than 300 years of history, Twinings still has fresh vitality. The identity of Royal Tea has earned it extraordinary respect. The clear positioning of “British style superimposed with fresh and lovely style”, coupled with high-quality tea, enables it to occupy a place in the British tea industry for a long time, become a world-famous high-end luxury tea brand, and continue to lead the new trend of tea drinking in the world. Read on to learn more about Twinings.

1、 Royal tea originated in 1706

（1） A tea shop started from a coffee shop

In 1684, nine-year-old Thomas Twining moved to London with his family. In 1701, when Thomas was 26 years old, he became a Freeman in London and left his former textile industry to work for a wealthy businessman and handle some tea transportation business. During this period, he learned a lot of skills from a businessman of the East India Company. At that time, the East India Company imported various commodities from all over the world, including tea.

In 1706, Mr. Thomas bought a cafe from Mr. Tom. This store, located in Strand Street in the United Kingdom, has become the predecessor of Twinings Tea Shop, which is still in existence and has a history of more than 300 years. At that time, coffee was very popular. Mr. Thomas did make coffee for some time, but he saw people’s love for tea. Although the tax on tea was relatively high in the early 18th century, tea drinking would be restricted, but it still did not hinder people’s pursuit of tea drinking. Mr. Thomas, who has some knowledge of tea, brought tea into the coffee shop and gradually developed the tea business. Since then, Twinings’ tea business has developed slowly.

Later, Twinings was taken over by Daniel Twiig, Mary Twining n é e Little, Richard Twining I, Richard Twining II and others. They have made outstanding contributions. Daniel expanded the sales scope of tea; Mary has maintained the quality of tea in 21 years of operation; Richard I. created the brand logo and promoted the tax reduction of tea; Richard II. provides customized tea service and so on. With their efforts and promotion, Twinings continues to develop and become a world-famous brand.

Today, Twinings has become the tea brand used by the British royal family, and has been popular in more than 100 countries around the world after 10 generations of inheritance. It has more than 500 kinds of tea products, ranking the top among the international tea brands, with the second largest scale and strength in the world.

（2） Tea brand favored by the royal family

The first impression Twinings gives people is “Royal Tea”. Because Twinings has a close relationship with the British royal aristocracy: In 1803, Twinings’ famous “Grand Earl Tea” was born, and this tea was specially commissioned by the British Prime Minister, Earl Grey, and prepared by Twinings; In 1837, Queen Victoria, the British royal family, issued the first “Royal Power of Attorney”, and Twinings was designated as the royal tea, and was deeply loved by the royal aristocracy such as George V, Edward VII and Queen Alexander.

The British royal family’s love for Twinings continues after that. In 1972, Queen Elizabeth II awarded Twinings the honor of “the first queen to export tea”, and in 1977, it was awarded for the second time. Therefore, Twinings’ identity as “royal tea” is beyond doubt.

As the royal tea, Twinings will create some special tea products for the royal family, such as the “Royal Wedding Memorial Tea” launched for the wedding of Prince William and Princess Kate in 2011; In 2012, the “2012 Diamond Jubilee Celebration Gift Box” launched to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s accession to the throne; In 2014, the Twinings Royal Collection gift box was launched.

2、 The fusion expression of elegant British style and young and lively style

Since its development in 1706, Twinings, with a history of more than 300 years, has not lagged behind the times as people think, but has been innovating and leading the world’s tea drinking trend. The reason lies in its brand strategy that can be closely connected with the times: to maintain elegant British style, and to pursue young and lively style. This is reflected in Twinings’ brand logo, packaging design, promotional activities and other aspects.

（1） The brand logo is rich in history

Twinings has been using the brand logo designed in 1787 and has been used for 233 years. The design of bold black characters and gold background is concise, clear and easy to memorize. The small characters of “of London” at the bottom emphasize that its origin comes from London, which has a long history and rich cultural heritage. All elements endow the brand logo with a long sense of history and classical charm.

（2） Unique store design

Twinings’ exclusive store design is very distinctive. The area of the store on Strand Street in London is small, but it reflects the delicacy and quality of its brand everywhere. This store was rebuilt in 1717 when Mr. Thomas bought three adjacent houses. In 1787, Richard Twining I., the grandson of Thomas, repaired the store, and the client built the current door. There are huge black letters and gold doorplates and badges on the door. There is also a golden lion and two Chinese men on it. The lion is seated to show respect for Richard’s grandfather and founder Thomas; The left and right sides are Chinese, because for a long time, China has been an important source of tea. The passageway in the store is a little narrow. There are neat wooden tea shelves on both sides of the passageway. Thousands of tea products of different origins, varieties and tastes are displayed on the tea shelves. Some of them are packaged with small tea of different colors and neatly listed in the tea cabinet, forming a rainbow tea wall. At the end of the passage, there is a long table for tea tasting and rest. Next to the long table, there are some data and images of the colonial tea trade, as well as various tea packages left over from a long time ago. Those slightly yellow paper packaging and rusty iron boxes are full of historical sense and make people daydream. It makes people seem to go back to the past and see the century-old history of Twinings.

（3） Exquisite packaging shows youthful style

Now, 300 years later, many young people like to buy Twinings tea. In addition to the endorsement role of royal tea, it is also attractive because of its packaging design. Twinings has not only classic iron tea cans with British style, but also fresh and lovely tea cans, tea bags and mugs in mint green, girl powder, light goose yellow, sapphire blue and other colors. In particular, the limited gift box and mug launched in cooperation with V&A, the world’s largest art and design museum, are very artistic, like a collection.

（4） Unique tea set gift box

Twinings’ tea sets and gift boxes have their own charm. The classic bone china teacups and teapots in Phnom Penh, silver small teaspoons, gold small tea glasses, and small milk cans, each of which is reminiscent of afternoon tea time.

In addition to the noble royal gift box and the elegant wooden gift box, Twinings also has a dreamy artist gift box. Artist gift box is a picture with unique meaning that Twinings invites famous jewelry designers, ink artists, food painters and artists to design and package for it, with the theme of “flowing time and space”, “prosperous golden ceremony”, “green forever”, etc., which makes simple tea box more vivid and interesting, and more thought-provoking.

3、 Brand vision: the best tea in the world is in the cup

（1） Top matching between master matchmaker and origin resources

“The world in your cup” is Twinings’ brand vision and the consumer resonance Twinings is trying to trigger. Twinings links consumers’ recognition of their tea products through such appeals.

Twinings has a professional team of tea blenders, which is the first brand in the world to have its own tea blender. Each blender of Twinings has rich tea knowledge, understands the characteristics of millions of tea and flowers, and the characteristics of tea production in various countries. They have more than 20 years of valuable experience in the field of tea purchase and tea blending, and have experienced up to 5 years of training, which is enough to take care of both the role of tea leaf purchasing and tea blender. At the same time, in order to ensure the high quality of tea raw materials, Twinings will select raw materials from famous tea producing areas around the world, and select the best blending resources from hundreds of raw materials. The unique cooperation between matchmaker and matchmaker resources enables Twinings to provide enough variety of flavored tea and popular products.

As Mike Ruite, the master of tea blending, said, “I think Twinings is a symbol of quality. We are constantly improving and pursuing excellence every day, and never complacent about our achievements.”

（2） Youth style of continuous innovation

Twinings has been exploring new models. For example, it began to produce tea bags in 1956, pioneered caffeine tea in 1980, started to provide organic tea in 1996, and now it has chicken tail tea. It also pays attention to the health trend of contemporary people, and launched a series of maintenance products. Twinings pays attention to high quality, while constantly exploring and innovating, which caters to the curiosity and exploration characteristics of young people.

4、 Promoter of British tea culture

As a brand with a history of more than 300 years, Twinings can be said to have condensed the history of British tea culture, and it is really committed to spreading British tea culture. Twinings has set up a tea academy, with the “Twinings Brand Ambassador” as the lecturer, to popularize and disseminate its brand’s long history, rich British tea culture, and tea-related production and blending skills through exchange and learning. In 2019, Twinings also published the book “The Birth of the Life Aesthetics of Downing Tea”, which systematically introduced the English tea drinking and food culture, Twinings’ original tea mixing technology, drink mixing aesthetics and other interesting tea knowledge, so that more people can understand its history and the charm of British tea culture.

Twinings knows how to attract consumers with British afternoon tea. It specially matches the “afternoon tea playing method” for tea products: the Royal Earl’s milk tea is made from the rich Earl’s tea; Use fruity tea with fresh fruit, cocktail or milk; Make vanilla ice cream with Japanese fried tea; Make scones with earl tea and so on. Twinings will also launch the “Twinings New Recipe” in due time, so that each kind of tea can be connected with the scene of afternoon tea, touching people’s imagination of the scene and stimulating people’s desire to buy.