Red Rose Tea

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Red Rose Tea is a beverage company established by Theodore Harding Estabrooks in 1894 in New Brunswick, Canada. Its orange pekoe tea is said to be made from only the top two leaves of each tea plant sprig, thus ensuring the best quality.

Red Rose's old commercials introduced the catchphrase, "Only in Canada, you say? Pity...." However, the tea has been available in the United States since the 1920s. Another slogan was "Red Rose Tea is Good Tea."

The brand is owned by Unilever in Canada, and by Redco Foods in the U.S. The brand was formerly owned by Brooke Bond Foods of the UK.

[edit] Collectable Series

During the 1960s and 1970s packages of tea included tea cards and porcelain figurines. These were issued in annual series of 48 cards each.

Series	Name	Year
1	Songbirds of North America	1959
2	Animals of North America	1960
3	Wildflowers of North America	1961
4	Birds of North America	1962
5	Dinosaurs	1963
6	Tropical Birds	1964
7	African Animals	1965
8	Butterflies of North America	1966
9	Canadian/American Songbirds	1967
10	Transportation through the ages	1968
11	Trees of North America	1969
12	The Space Age	1970
13	North American Wildlife in Danger	1971
14	Exploring the Ocean	1972
15	Animals and their Young	1973
16	The Arctic	1974
17	Indians of Canada	1975

In 1983, a unique series was created for Red Rose Tea being sold in the United States. To this day, there are still figurines found inside the boxes.

Name	# of pieces	Years
U.S. Animal Series #1	15	1983-1985
U.S. Animal Series #2	20	1985-1996
Circus Figurine Series	15	1994-1999
Endangered North American Animal Series	10	1999-2002
Noah's Ark Animal Series	15	2002-2006
Pet Shop Friends Series	10	2006-present

[edit] Red Rose Tea TV commercial

In the 1960's, the Marquis Chimps appeared in three television commercials for Red Rose Tea. The most popular one featured the chimps dressed in plaid suits playing a swinging jazz number in praise of Red Rose Tea. [1]

In 1972, Pittsburgh DJs Zeke Jackson and Frank "Crazy D" DiMino thought that the audio on the Red Rose Tea commercial was worth putting out on record. They obtained the rights to the song from Brooke Bond Foods and put out 1,000 copies of the tune on their own Gink label (Gink #9612). Same tune on both sides of the record.