Sam Twining and the 80s/90s American tea-revival

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mbanu
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Sat Mar 20, 2021 10:52 pm

I'll need to do a bit of digging to find the quote (although it sounds like something James Norwood Pratt would have mentioned), but apparently Sam Twining of Twinings was originally just a regular employee, the company having long been sold, and was promoted to chairman when it dawned on someone in marketing how much it would help the company out to have a "Mr. Twining of Twinings".

He is mentioned by the tea-folks behind the revival, being friends with Pratt, Helen Gustafson, and others on the scene, but there doesn't seem to be much written about the back-end of how this happened. I get the impression that after WWII, Twinings was sort of just getting along on European export sales, and did not have much of a domestic market, so the American tea-revival was as big a thing for them as it was for Americans. :) I think during the 80s they also established a formal U.S. branch in North Carolina, as I've seen it mentioned on old tins.

The whole thing is very interesting to me, so I thought I'd start a thread about it.
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mbanu
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:56 am

mbanu wrote:
Sat Mar 20, 2021 10:52 pm
I'll need to do a bit of digging to find the quote (although it sounds like something James Norwood Pratt would have mentioned), but apparently Sam Twining of Twinings was originally just a regular employee, the company having long been sold, and was promoted to chairman when it dawned on someone in marketing how much it would help the company out to have a "Mr. Twining of Twinings".
Found the quote in the back of The Tea Lover's Treasury from 1982:
At the present moment in its long and illustrious history, the House of Twining is said to sell less tea per capita in Britain than it does in the United States, where the only other widely available line of specialty teas is Wagners. Twinings' preeminence in this regard is comparatively recent and largely due to the brilliance of a national sales manager named Jim McGilloway and a publicist named Ruth Morrison. Among other things, they rescued an honest-to-God descendant of old Tom's, the amiable Mr. Sam Twining, O.B.E., from the firm's export department and got him out front as the company spokesman and symbol -- a living ad. It's a great job, of course, and one Mr. Twining clearly delights and excels in.
A bit more info from the Specialty Food Association, which gave Mr. McGilloway a Lifetime Achievement award for his work; apparently he was the original U.S. importer of Twining tea during the early 80s. It also helps explain to me how Twining became for years the only loose-leaf tea available in many U.S. grocery stores, as he had worked for years in the grocery market before the switch.
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mbanu
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:24 am

Things get a little hazy before the 1980s, it looks like there was a former distributor during the 1970s that Twinings became unhappy with for whatever reason and dropped, leading to a court case in 1986 between the 1970s distributor and the pre-1970s distributor involving payment for customer lists, at which time McGilloway was working for the U.S. Twinings branch.
The parties do not dispute the basic facts. Twining, a British corporation, prepares and sells a well-known brand of tea worldwide. Crawford Norris distributed Twining Tea in the United States from the 1930s until 1969. In the late 1960s, Robert R. Cooper began assisting Norris in the operation of his business and eventually became a director of the Norris Agency. In 1968, Twining approached Cooper about becoming its United States distributor, indicating that it had decided not to renew Norris' license when it expired in 1970. Cooper accepted Twining's proposal. In June, 1969, Twining informed Norris that his agency would not be renewed when it expired.

Subsequently, Norris agreed to sell his distribution system to Cooper. In a December, 1969 agreement, Norris transferred to Cooper his distributorship agreement with Twining, his inventory and customer lists, his unfilled sales orders, and the lease for his midtown Manhattan offices. Norris further agreed not to compete in the tea or coffee business in the United States for six years, to resign from Twining's board of directors and renounce all claims against Twining, and to assist Cooper's new corporation by providing consultative services and below-market financing. In return, Norris was to receive a specified percentage, eventually 25%,2 of the "after-tax operating profits" of Cooper's agency during the term of its distributorship agreement with Twining, including any renewals and extensions. These payments were to be made for Norris' lifetime and, in the event he predeceased his wife, for his wife's lifetime. The contract finally required any controversies arising under it to be submitted to arbitration. Cooper made payments to Norris under this agreement from 1970 until the fall of 1979.

In 1976, Twining renewed Cooper's distributorship. The renewal agreement provided that either party could terminate the agency on or after December 31, 1981, by giving the other party two years notice. In December, 1979, Twining gave such notice to Cooper. On March 31, 1980, Cooper authorized Grosvenor, an affiliate of Twining which has been distributing tea in the United States since the end of the Cooper distributorship, to accelerate the two-year notice provision. The distributorship therefore was terminated effective January 1, 1980. In exchange, Cooper received a $3 million payment "for the cancellation of the distributorship agreement" and a $40,000 payment for signing a covenant not to compete.
(https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/re ... -7344.html)
Trying to discover who "Grosvenor" was lead to a bit of elaboration from the Specialty Foods Association:
In 1971, after a successful career in supermarket management, Jim migrated to the specialty food industry, where he spent 25+ years building success in the U.S. for Twinings Tea, Tobler Chocolates, Tiptree Preserves and other iconic brands. He was recruited by Crawford Norris, the first importer of Twinings Tea and joined the RR Cooper Company and Internal Commodities as executive vice president, later becoming chief operating officer of Grosvenor Marketing. Under his guidance, Twinings Tea and Tobler Chocolate became dominant brands. (https://www.specialtyfood.com/news/arti ... cgilloway/)
Ruth Morrison was the head of Ruth Morrison Associates, a Madison Avenue PR firm started in 1972.

It looks like Sam Twining as "Mr. Twining of Twinings" had been established by 1980, as he was heavily quoted in a March 1980 article in the New York Times:
Using a shallow soup spoon, each taster "slurps" up to 500 brews a day, savoring each before spitting it out. In the tasters' vocabulary, an Assam blend should be "malty," Darjeeling should have a "muscatel" flavor and Lapsang souchong should taste "tarry." In fact, a good Lapsang "smells like old moccasins," said Twining, adding hastily, "It's very refreshing on a hot summer day." Twining, 46 years old, who served a long apprenticeship as a "pot-boy" for the concern's tea tasters then was a manager of tea gardens and a buyer at auctions, would seem to have tea in his veins. His office walls are hung with the portraits of famous ancestors beginning with the first Thomas Twining, who in the early 1700s began offering tea as an added attraction at his coffee-house on the Strand. (With the building now used as a coffee and tea salesroom, the Twinings have operated longer in the same trade from the same address than has any other British family.) Twining himself evokes Dr. Samuel Johnson's self-portrait as a tea drinker "who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight and with tea welcomes the morning." He begins his day, he said, with the "full-bodied" English Breakfast tea, drinks any of a half-dozen different blends including his own blend of English Breakfast with Earl Grey in the afternoon and, after dinner, downs a cup of Earl Grey, jasmine or Formosa Oolong. "It depends on my mood, the weather and what I've been eating," he said. Twining is also emphatic on the subject of tea-making. A teapot may be china, silver or glass, but aluminum and pewter are taboo. His formula : The water should be just at the boiling point when it is poured into the warmed pot. Tea should be brewed for three to five minutes. Afterward the pot should be rinsed with water only, and once a month rubbed down with baking soda. Tea cozies, beloved by English housewives, should be outlawed because they allow the tea to steep too long. Milk may be added to most teas, but not sugar, which numbs the palate. "As a Twining, I was brought up very strictly never to put sugar in my tea," Twining said. "If you're using sugar, you should find a tea that's less bitter."
Also an ad for Twinings from November 1980 that was in New York Magazine, which I guess would have been a few months after Grosvenor took over.
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mbanu
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:47 pm

From another article from the New York Daily News in May of 1980:
In New York recently to confer, sip, promote, and quietly suggest, Twining had only kind remarks to make about Americans and tea. And why not? When coffee prices jumped in 1978, some of the committed caffeine audience switched to tea and sales have continued high ever since. This, along with what Twining terms our "increased sophistication" about the kinds and varieties of teas, have made us, if not a tea-crazed nation, a tea active country, potentially ready to drink even more. [. . . ] Although the teas vary, depending on the season and the crops, each blended batch must be consistent with the last and as much attention is paid to an Earl Grey, which averages $2.95 a pound [$9.49 in 2021], as is to a vintage Darjeeling, the rare "King of Teas," which retails for about $4 a pound [$12.86 in 2021]. Even at its most dear, however. Twining holds that tea is the most economical of drinks. "A pound of good tea," he said, "will make 240 cups, and a lot more if you like it weaker. When you cost it out, you see that it is the most reasonable drink in the world."
It looks like part of the context for the interest in tea was a sharp increase in the price of coffee in the late 1970s that shifted former coffee-drinkers over to cheaper teabags, I suppose then opening the opportunity to entice them with loose-leaf teas.

One thing that is hard to tell from just the newspaper articles is how much of "Mr. Twining" was a gimmick and how much was genuine. The newspaper articles seemed to play up his Britishisms, like in this 1981 article from the San Francisco Examiner:
Sam Twining has tea in the morning, tea at noon, at tea-time, tea in the evening, tea before retiring. He drinks the stuff with different foods and when he's in different moods. He even matches it to the weather. When it's really blistering outside, he'll pour a cup of hot Lapsang Souchong. "Because hot tea," he says, "has an extraordinary property that not only quenches your thirst but cools you down." When it's not so warm, he'll opt for a variety like Prince of Wales tea. And when it's one of those "really cold, horrible, wet English days," he'll turn to a potent potion like Assam. He averages nine to 12 cups of tea a day, but he doesn't consider himself hooked. [. . .] Twining is on a U.S. and Canadian tour to check out tea lounges in Four Seasons' hotels like the Clift in San Francisco. "I think tea-drinking is just catching on in the United States," he says. "It's becoming very popular among young Americans who have seen coffee as a Momma and Poppa drink. They want to break with tradition and have a beverage of their own." But Twining questions the form of the beverage. "To me." he says, "the worst crime of all on the American market is that something like 20 percent of the sales are of those bottles of iced-tea mix. I've checked, and only about four percent of the stuff is actually tea." Twining also has some other strong ideas about how tea should be enjoyed. "Being brought up as a Twining," he says, "I've never put sugar in my tea. Sugar takes away the delicate flavor. If you have to have a cup with sugar to get a pickup, fine, but don't consider it tea. Have one cup with sugar and then another cup straight. "Milk is all right, but if you use it, put it in the cup first and the tea second. If you add any small measure to a large measure it doesn't mix well. More important, the milk is usually not in perfect condition. If you add it to tea, it can separate, and you get revolting fatty globules." Even worse than revolting fatty globules is cream. Twining doesn't get upset when you ask him about the Boston Tea Party. His father did thorough research on that and found it wasn't Twining tea that got dumped into the harbor. But when you inquire about putting cream into tea, he looks aghast and says, "Oh, no. Much too heavy. Stick to milk."
"You Americans and your bottled tea", having a prepared answer in response to the Boston Tea Party, all seem a bit like someone who has been coached, most likely by someone from Ruth Morrison.

I suspect that part of the reason books and newspaper articles were so positive was due to the mismatch between his press reputation and his actual duties. Book authors always seemed stunned and flattered when he took time to answer their questions personally, often giving him personal thanks in the acknowledgments section, maybe not realizing that it was likely a large part of his role at Twinings to do just that while others ran the day-to-day of the company.

Someone seemed to have a real knack for detecting good photo opportunities as well. Want to promote Twinings Earl Grey? Why not get a photo of Mr. Twining with Richard Grey, the 6th Earl Grey, in front of the old Twinings building? Holding a teapot, as though we had caught them having tea right there in the street? :D
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mbanu
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:42 pm

I believe he retired as Mr. Twining in 2004 or 2005, around the same time that Twinings closed their Greensboro, North Carolina plant: https://greensboro.com/twinings-to-clos ... 826ea.html

By then, Victoria Magazine had stopped publishing, Helen Gustafson was dead, and the American tea-revival was moving more into the tea-era documented on TeaChat, Blogspot, and similar places.

Before that, he did publish a book in 2002, My Cup of Tea, which seems to be a collection of the miscellaneous advice and tea history summaries he gave to the press over the years along with some nice illustrations. :)
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:47 pm

mbanu wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:47 pm
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I've been to that shop and remember thinking how this was such a lost opportunity, having a beautiful, historic shop, but filling it with what was no better than shopping mall shelves and inventory...
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mbanu
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Tue Mar 23, 2021 3:35 pm

Bok wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:47 pm
mbanu wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:47 pm
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I've been to that shop and remember thinking how this was such a lost opportunity, having a beautiful, historic shop, but filling it with what was no better than shopping mall shelves and inventory...
I think part of this is a different approach to tea marketing between Brits and others. A lot of British tea history has been about trying to identify good tea-making practices and then industrialize them to capture an economy of scale. I think maybe the first time I realized that this was not everyone's practice was when someone who was mostly used to non-British teas was incredulous that many of the fannings in a British teabag at the grocery store had a two-leaf-and-a-bud plucking standard, as in their experience, tea just didn't work that way. It's sort of like how some people are surprised when I mention that very many Indian and Sri Lankan tea farms are made up of 100+ year old bushes, and that they are unhappy with this and try every year to get rid of some of them. :)
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