The Bigelow Tea Company (formerly R.C. Bigelow, Inc.) is an American manufacturer of dried teas based in Fairfield, Connecticut. It was founded by Ruth C. Bigelow in the late 1940s, based on a recipe she marketed as "Constant Comment" tea. The company markets over 50 varieties of tea, including black, green, and herbal, all of which are blended in Fairfield. Their Charleston Tea Plantation in South Carolina is the only tea plantation in America. Still a 100% family-owned business, Bigelow employs 350 people and had annual sales in 2009 of approximately 90 million USD.
Constant Comment
Constant Comment remains today one of Bigelow Inc.'s most popular products. It is a black tea flavored with orange rinds and sweet spices. The recipe was developed by interior designer Ruth Bigelow in 1945, from an old colonial tea recipe for making orange and spice flavored tea in stone containers.
In 1945, The New York Times food writer Jane Holt wrote about the newly introduced tea, calling it "unusual", "delicious", "concentrated", and "economical":
A 1945 article by noted food writer Clementine Paddleford tells this story about the origin of the name:
Sales grew slowly but steadily, taking off in the 1970s when Bigelow began packing their teabags in folding boxes instead of tins. According to singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, the famous lines, "and she feeds you tea and oranges / that come all the way from China", from his first hit song "Suzanne", refer to Constant Comment tea.
In 2016, CEO Cindi Bigelow said of the recipe for Constant Comment: "the only two people who know the formula are my parents [Ruth Bigelow's son David, Jr. and his wife]" and that the recipe remains unchanged from the original since it was first developed.
See also
- Charleston Tea Plantation
- Earl Grey tea, an English tea blend flavored with oil from the bergamot orange, but no spices
- List of tea companies
References
External links
- Official Website
- Bigelow Tea Blog
- Article about Bigelow
