Lipton Tea Tin
Yellow and red Lipton black tea tin box. On one side of the tin, there are the various awards won by Lipton written. Another side talks about Lipton's farm-to-table method and where their farms are located.
Thomas Lipton grew up in Scotland and moved to the US in 1865. He later opened up a grocery store, following in his parent's footsteps. He cared a lot about having good tea and imported materials from all over the world to achieve this. He was amazingly able to keep his tea very cheap, which made it very popular. At the age of 30, his business was officially named Lipton and only grew from there. He quickly grew his single store, into 200.
Of course, any successful business needs good advertisement. This tea tin proves that Lipton's product packaging was very effective and helped his tea sell. His early advertisements were printed in newspapers and showed women holding boxes of tea alongside information and statistics on Lipton Gardens and awards received, which are also shown on the tin here. lipton sold tea in tins with paper labels from the beginning of the company. He started with using paper labels but switched to embossed tins later. Lipton made the switch to paper boxes around 1945.
Lipton has been one of the best-selling tea companies in the world since its creation in 1890, and that very much holds up today. Unfortunately, packaging like this is not seen a lot anymore. Now, many Lipton teas are sold in cardboard boxes with their logo, and very similar design work as their other products.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Thomas Lipton". Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 Sep. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Lipton. Accessed 7 November 2023.
Cup, America’s. “Lipton’s Last Hurrah and the First of the J-Class.” 37th America’s Cup, www.americascup.com/history/28_LIPTONS-LAST-HURRAH-AND-THE-FIRST-OF-THE-J-CLASS#:~:text=By%20the%20mid%201890’s%20Lipton,stockyards%2C%20factories%20and%20processing%20depots. Accessed 7 Nov. 2023.
Mills, Robin. “A Chronological Guide to Embossed Lipton Tea Tins.” Post-Medieval Archaeology, Informa UK Limited, 5 Oct. 2021, www.academia.edu/31050913/A_chronological_guide_to_embossed_Lipton_Tea_tins.
