History of tea in America

Tea came to America in 1650, even before it reached England.  Peter Stuyvesant brought the first tea to America to the colonists in the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, which later became New York.

Soon American colonists were consuming more tea than England and the Dutch stayed active in tea trade throughout the Western world.

Once tea did become popular in England, the British could hardly be expected to travel abroad without their precious drink and as a result, tea made second entree to the United States with the British colonists.

By the beginning of the 18th century tea was available in major American cities, but through trade with England. In 1880’s, America came to the forefront as the biggest importer of tea due to faster clipper ships and the ability to pay its debts in gold.

In 1890, Sir Thomas Lipton, who had already helped to popularize tea in England, brought his business acumen to the United States. During the war years, Lipton had enlarged its U.S. sales and in August 1919 it moved its packing plant and main office to a large eleven-story building in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Another British form, Tetley Tea, had sizeable American market share. Salada Tea Company founded in Toronto in 1892 also marketed in the United States.

At the turn of the 20th century the tea bag came along a surprise and Thomas J. Lipton was responsible for designing a four sided tea he dubbed the ‘flo-thru’ tea bag.
History of tea in America

Biography of Sir Thomas Lipton

Biography of Sir Thomas Lipton
Towards the the end id the nineteenth century a modern shopping industry began to appear in Scotland, offering low prices and high quality. The most famous of the new shopkeepers was Thomas Lipton.

Thomas Lipton was born in Glasgow in 1850. When he left school he was only nine years old, but he found work and had soon saved enough to buy a ticket on a liner to New York.

In New York he got a job in a grocery store. Three years later still a teenager he was back in Glasgow bursting with the new ideas he had seen in the New York shops. When he opens his own shop in 1870, he began to try these ideas out.

Within a few years new Lipton’s shops were opening all over Scotland at the rate of one week. England came next, and by 1885 more than 600 Lipton shops were busily trading.

At first shops sold mainly hams, eggs, cheeses and butter.

Next, Lipton entered the tea market, and again with dramatic success. Lipton became a very wealthy man as a result of his business successes.

Later in his life he was well known for his love of sailing and for the beautifully made yachts always called Shamrock,, that he bought and raced in Britain and America.

But when he died in 1931 he was still known best for the great changes he had brought to shopping.
Biography of Sir Thomas Lipton