Williamson Tea Heritage

Williamson Tea is a special name among tea connoisseurs. As one of the the world’s few private tea producing company, Williamson Tea occupies an almost unique position in growing, producing, marketing, and selling fine teas. Williamson Tea is universally acknowledged as 'THE' quality tea producer.

The Williamson Tea Group

With every subsidiary company wholly concerned with the tea industry from plantation to packers was founded 1869, in Calcutta by two friends, James Williamson and Richard Magor. Today, the firm is still family owned, and run, by Philip fourth generation of the original Magor family enabling the group to operate the same, distinctive personal service today as over 100 years ago. Today the group owns 4 farms in Kenya, having divested their interests in Assam.

The History of Tea

The history of tea is full of myth and legend, tales of princes and swashbuckling pirates and smugglers.

Some sources place the first mention of tea with an Arab merchant Suleiman as far back as 851 AD, while the Chinese cling to the story dating from 2737 BC of Chinese Emperor Shen Nung boiling his drinking water (as was customary at the time), when a couple of leaves blew into the liquid, resulting in a delicious, hitherto untried taste. It was not until the 19th century that the tea plant was cultivated in Assam, NorthEast India. On the foothills of the Himalayas, the Chinese tea plant was successful in producing the very fine Darjeeling.

Little is known about the early beginnings of tea in Britain. The East India Company, under their charter granted by Elizabeth I, recorded ships reaching China in 1637, but it was not until 1644 that any record of tea appeared in their dealings with the Chinese merchants. However, sailors returning from the Far East did bring packets of the strange leaf back as presents for friends and relatives. It was through these sailors that tea first found its way into London’s coffee houses.

By the beginning of the 18th century tea began to be regarded as an interesting alternative to coffee, although it carried a punitive tax and was not readily affordable by anyone but the upper classes. Price made tea the perfect prey for smugglers, and it wasn’t until William Pitt reduced the tax in 1784 that tea was more widely drunk.

The ritual of afternoon tea (established, apparently, at the beginning of the 19th century by the seventh Duchess of Bedford who was unable to wait until dinner without additional refreshment) have contributed to the UK's development as a tea loving nation.