Yorkshire Tea is a black teablend produced by the Bettys & Taylors Group since 1977. It is the most popular traditional black tea brand sold in the UK. In 1886 Charles Edward Taylor Founded CE Taylor & Co., later shortened to "Taylors", the company was purchased by 'Betty's Tea Rooms' which today forms Bettys & Taylors Group. Taylors of Harrogate is still based in Harrogate, Yorkshire, in the first 'Betty's' tea room. The group is still owned by the family of Bettys' founder, Fredrick Belmont and is currently chaired by Lesley Wild. The company is one of the few remaining family tea and coffee merchants in the country, whilst competing with the British-owned PG Tips and Tetley, where Yorkshire Tea is now the most purchased tea brand in the UK, overtaking Twinings and Typhoo.
Products
Yorkshire Tea uses varieties of tea grown in Assam, Sri Lanka, and Kenya, blended to form four varieties:
The Yorkshire Tea brand is being extended to include a range of cakes, biscuits, and fruit loaves, sold as being complementary to drinking tea by its parent company The Bettys & Taylors Group, which owns cookery schools and tea rooms.
History
Charles Edward Taylor and his brother created their company, CE Taylor & Co., in 1886 which was later shortened to "Taylor's". The brothers later opened "Tea Kiosks" in the Yorkshire towns of Harrogate and Ilkley, and in 1962, local tea room competitor 'Betty's' took over 'Taylor's', renamed it 'Taylors of Harrogate' and formed the Bettys & Taylors Group, which is still owned by the family of Fredrick Belmont, who founded 'Bettys Tea Rooms'. The Group now uses the 'Bettys' and 'Taylors' brands in a number of industries including Yorkshire Tea and Taylors Coffee Merchants under the 'Taylors of Harrogate' name and Bettys Tea Rooms, Bettys Cookery School and Bettys Confectionery under the 'Bettys' brand. Yorkshire Tea as a brand was launched in 1977, originally conceived as 'Yorkshire Tea for Yorkshire people, and Yorkshire water-types'. In the early days different blends were created and sold for different regions of Yorkshire where the hardness / softness of the water varied. Over time, and as the scale of the brand grew to be fully national, the product has evolved to one single blend in the standard orange-coloured pack. However, it retains a hard water variant in green-coloured packs to cater for those who live in hard water areas of the UK. When Safeway was taken over by West Yorkshire-based Morrisons in 2004, commentators in the London press noted the amount of shelf space in one former Safeway store that was suddenly given over to Yorkshire Tea. In 2009, the Prince of Wales granted Yorkshire Tea a Royal Warrant. Until 2011, Taylor's of Harrogate supplied the tea free to branches of the WI. The company has also sponsored ITV1's Yorkshire-based Heartbeat from 1998 to 2001. By 2015, Yorkshire Tea was the third best-selling tea brand in Britain behind Tetley and PG Tips. By September 2017, it was the second best-selling brand behind PG Tips after having overtaken Tetley on sales in the traditional "black tea" market. In November 2019, it was revealed that Yorkshire Tea was now the number one selling brand of tea in the United Kingdom with 28% of the traditional black tea market.
In 2007, a new TV campaign was created using the line "Try It, You'll See", voiced by Bill Nighy. Yorkshire Gold is mentioned in the popular Showtime TV series Homeland as a favourite of protagonist SergeantNicholas Brody. Ian Brabbin, tea buyer at Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate said:
We were both surprised and delighted to discover that Yorkshire Gold has been given such a starring role in Homeland and are looking forward to seeing the show when it arrives on our screens here later in the year. We are no strangers to the small screen – Yorkshire Tea has also made a cameo appearance on Friends, not to mention our ever growing band of celebrity fans such as Noel Gallagher and Alan Carr.
Also on the celebrity fan list are Russell Crowe, who posted on Twitter about the beverage in 2012, and who visited Yorkshire Teas' headquarters in Harrogate whilst touring with his band. Other aficionados include Martha Reeves, who was also featured on the social media site holding Yorkshire Tea paraphernalia, and Patrick Stewart who indicated Yorkshire Gold was his favourite tea during a RedditAsk Me Anything session. Yorkshire Tea is notable for its packaging which features romanticised Yorkshire Dales landscapes, although from time to time it explores other themes. As an official supporter of the Grand Départ of the 2014 Tour de France in Yorkshire, Yorkshire Tea produced a 30g special edition sample pack rebranded as Yorkshire Thé. As well as the name change, the orange on the usual box was replaced with yellow. On the hard water variety of the special edition Yorkshire Thé packaging the band remained green. In 2016 Yorkshire Tea was made available inside a promotional tea caddy linked to a tree planting campaign with artwork featuring characters from the children's bookThe Gruffalo and branded Yorkshire Tree. The YouTuber "The Spiffing Brit" constantly advertises Yorkshire Tea in his videos, allegedly without any official connection to or contract with the Bettys & Taylors Group. On 5 March 2020, his 1 million subscriber Q&A special was sponsored by Yorkshire Tea.
