These are two classic tea towels which, along with a tray that I also bought, are part of an advertising campaign for tea (mainly tea bags). I loved the campaign, the characters (do you remember Sidney?), the strap lines; they have been around a long time. Yet, initially, I’m blowed if I could remember if the campaign was for Tetleys or Typhoo teas. I have asked a couple of friends who both say that they remember the campaign but neither could pinpoint the tea. Does that mean that it was a poor advertising campaign? Or is there a subliminal message that ensures that when you are in a supermarket you will go to the correct product? Actually I just needed to get my brain in gear, get my memory to work properly: Tetleys Makes Teabags Make Tea. Who can forget that? Not me. So there is the answer to the question at the top of the page.
Believe it or not, in 2012, Portmeirion Village, in North Wales, was another tea towel lover’s paradise. Not only was there ‘The Prisoner’ shop with its tea towels; there was the Portmeirion Pottery outlets and all their tea towels (I didn’t buy any of those because I already had several); and there were the independent shops which had a whole range of tea towels. With my ‘Prisoner’ tea towel already in my bag, I wasn’t looking for another tea towel. However, then I saw these two; I loved the cartoon characters, I loved the colours – blue on white and white on blue, I loved the quotes, but couldn’t decide which one I preferred so I took the easy way out and bought both.
I am unashamedly a tea drinker; never touch coffee, never touch alcohol. I like all sorts of tea, different tea for different occasions and different moods. The results of the Referendum certainly required a strong Ceylon or Kenyan tea. However, I hate tea bags with a passion: it doesn’t matter whether tea bags are round, square or triangular or made of paper, silk or nylon, so there is an irony that I bought two tea towels which are mainly about tea bags.
I needed to ask Mr Google for a bit of help with the background to the Tetley advertising campaign: the characters on my two tea towels are known, along with many others, as the Tetley Tea Folk, animated characters used to advertise Tetley Tea from 1973 to 2001 and then from 2010 to the present day. Over 30 million Tea Folk items have been sold and Tetley Tea Folk items can be found in over 5 million Britsh homes (and one of them is mine!!). I love these tea towels, they make me smile and I’d like to say “How about a nice brew?” – loose leaf, of course.
Click below to return to the Virtual Tea Towel Museum
https://virtualteatowelmuseum.com/2017/05/14/the-promotional-collection/
myteatowels 