Borrowed Bones
Families build you up, tear you down, and sometimes drag you into something truly unhinged. Borrowed Bones unearths the bizarre, toxic, and fascinating stories of family dynamics gone sideways. From the macabre to the just plain strange, we’re digging deep to uncover the skeletons hiding in the closets of history, culture, and beyond.
Borrowed Bones
The Twining(s) Family and Tea Company
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Three hundred years of ethical business seems almost impossible in today's world, yet the Twining family tea empire stands as a remarkable exception to our cynical expectations.
Sources:
Which Came First? Tea or Coffee?, Twinings Tea,
Witheridge Historical Archive, Livery Committee, Catherine of Braganza,
Twining Tea and Jane Austen, Back Then History, Richard Twining,
East India Company Act of 1784, Earl Grey, What is a Royal Warrant,
Garden History Girl , The London Archives, Red Leaf Tea, Tea Happiness,
Ready for Tea, World Tea News, Sourced With Care, Save the Children,
Human Rights Guide, Modern Slavery Statement,
E-Mail the show at BorrowedBonesPodcast@proton.me
Molly Bz Cookies - Promo Code: Bones
Get Good Feels Cannabis Seltzer - Promo Code: Bones
Hello everyone.
Speaker 2Hey.
Speaker 1I'm Sarah.
Speaker 2I'm Cole.
Speaker 1You're listening to Borrowed Bones, a podcast about fucked up, interesting and toxic families.
Speaker 2Back at it, here we go.
Speaker 1Let's do it. It's been a few weeks.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's been a minute on our end.
Speaker 1Yeah, I got a new job, so there's that.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1I'm still bartending, but just a different place.
Speaker 2Just a different bar.
Speaker 1Yeah, did the whole overlap thing for the two weeks. You know all that fun stuff. So we're like two weeks behind, but life is life.
Speaker 2Who are we talking about today? Who, what?
Speaker 1I've been telling you about this family because they're surprisingly very nice.
Speaker 2Oh, so you know what's coming yeah.
Speaker 1I haven't said too much to you, though there's a lot of details.
Speaker 2I didn't say yeah, I don't know anything about it.
Speaker 1So we're not doing a true crimey one today.
Speaker 2It's almost like the absence of crime.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And wrongdoing and nefariousness.
Speaker 1And that's what is startling to me.
Speaker 2That just means they buried it really well.
Speaker 1I wouldn't be surprised, because I never am. But I don't think so, I don't know.
Speaker 2But yes, it's more of an interesting family. I needed a break from the sadness, the doom and gloom and the blood and guts.
Speaker 1I'll get back into it. I know it. I'm already working on another one that a lot of other podcasts say they won't work on, so I'm doing it, but for now we'll keep it nice and light and happy. We are going to talk about the Twining family, or the Twining's Tea Company. Okay, so their last name is Twining.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 1But they are so intertwined with their company.
Speaker 2Intertwining.
Speaker 1Tea. Yes, I'm focusing more on the company growth and how each member of the family helped with the company growth, because they really do put all of their morals and integrity and values into their company.
Speaker 2Oh, okay, I don't know anything about them.
Speaker 1You don't see every day.
Speaker 2I'm assuming they're English.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, I know the name. Twining tea is a product, but I never gave any thought to its origin or who the twinings are or were.
Speaker 1Me either.
Speaker 2Do they make Earl Grey, or is that its own? Who makes Earl Grey tea?
Speaker 1I don't know.
Speaker 2I don't know.
Speaker 1Maybe if we go through this podcast we'll find out, okay. You just jump right to it. Yeah, anyway, let's get started.
Speaker 2Tell me about the Twining's Tiptoe through the Twining's.
Speaker 1The Twining family originates from Gloucestershire, england.
Speaker 2Okay, I looked up how to say that, yeah that's one that I know in my head I say it correctly, but I'm nervous about saying it out loud because I think I'll just fumble over my lips and tongue.
Speaker 1I listened and I spelled it phonetically it's either like Gloucestershire or Gloucestershire, but I don't have the English accent to add that little finesse to it, I'm. American, but I'm saying it the best that I can Gloucestershire? It Not Gloucestershire though. Yeah, so I know that much. It's kind of a. Boston moment here. Not Boston, but Massachusetts how they have those weird fucking names.
Speaker 2All right Family.
Thomas Twining and Tea's Origins
Speaker 1The Twining family originates from Gloucestershire, England.
Speaker 2England.
Speaker 1Thomas Twining is the one who started it all. Okay, he was born in 1675.
Speaker 2Ooh, way back. Mm-hmm, that's really earlier than I thought.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's why this was so surprising, because they haven't really been corrupted.
Speaker 2That's T's older than our nation.
Speaker 1Yes, oh, yeah.
Speaker 2A lot of England's older than our nation, oh yeah.
Speaker 1We're young and dumb.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1He was born in 1675, and his family at the time. Their trade was to become either a weaver or a fulling miller.
Speaker 2A fulling miller.
Speaker 1Yes, f-u-l-l-i-n-g. I don't know what that? Means, and a fulling mill is where cloth was processed by beating it with wooden mallets to make it smooth and compact. So it kind of goes with the weaving hand-in-hand cloth weaving textile pact. Okay, so it kind of goes with the weaving hand in hand cloth, weaving textile, yeah, yeah. In 1684 a recession hit the area and the family had to move to london for a better life. Thomas was nine years old at this time oh, all right, just a wee one just a lad.
Speaker 1As thomas got older, he followed in his father's footsteps and he took on the family trade and became an apprentice for a weaver in London.
Speaker 2Cool, he's learning the family business.
Speaker 1Well, it's not really the family business yet right. Weavers the family trade. Family trade yeah, they just know how to do that. Yeah, Work for other people Okay.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 1So then, in 1701, at the age of 26, thomas became a freeman, and that was a stepping stone toward owning his own business.
Speaker 2Okay, kind of like a free agent.
Speaker 1Yeah, you had to be a freeman at this time to own a business and the requirements you had to have an apprenticeship for seven years or experience and then, after Freeman, you're a livery man and then you have some standing in the company and that's another step closer to ownership. There were a lot of stepping stones.
Speaker 1So he worked it, but by the age of 26, he was a Freeman, so he was already going. After he became a Freeman he decided to switch trades and he began dabbling in tea. He was working for a wealthy merchant at the time and they were handling some of the early shipments of tea into England and Thomas would stay with this merchant for five years learning the tea business and he became really fascinated by it.
Speaker 2He loved it, so he's in England bringing tea in.
Speaker 1Yep, he's working for a merchant that brings the tea in. So he's helping. I don't think he's not going back and forth.
Speaker 2He's in England. Yeah, importing, exporting.
Speaker 1Yes, he's an importer, exporter. But what do you import and export? Toothpicks. Is that what it is?
Speaker 2on Seinfeld, something like that, yeah.
Speaker 1Another Seinfeld reference. Now, before we get too into how the Twining family basically revolutionized tea in the UK, a little history of tea in that area.
Speaker 2I just know it's really popular now and apparently society stops for tea time.
Speaker 1I think so. I don't know really all the ins and outs of that because I'm but there's a stereotype, at least in America, of Brits who are like in the clock dings, the whole country is like it's tea time now, and that's it. I do imagine that happening. I want that to be real.
Speaker 2I've watched documentaries like the making of movies and whatnot, and American directors would often be angry at British crews when they'd be filming because, like the production would stop for an hour on aliens.
Speaker 2James Cameron got really pissed off because all of his British crew was like it's one o'clock or whatever, like we're done to take tea, and he'd be like fuck your tea time, you're done. When I say you're done and no, you're not, I almost walked off and it became like a big. They had to apologize. They had to apologize. It was a big thing, I think it was.
Speaker 1I respect that. I think it was.
Speaker 2Sigourney Weaver, who played Ripley, who had to like be the middle man and smooth things over because, the crew of like 50 Brits was like we're walking off, yeah. And James Cameron was like, oh, I need you guys.
Speaker 1I love that. I love, yeah, I wish we could be more like that in this country. But you know, whatever, yeah, so tea was. It was consumed in England for a long time Fifteen, sixteen hundreds in that area but it was more medicinal. They didn't really do great things with it. They would reuse the tea leaves multiple times.
Speaker 1It would kind of get like gross. They didn't know what they were doing. It was medicinal. Yeah, it wasn't a posh cultural revolution that everyone had to have all the time of. Braganza, the daughter of the King of Portugal, married King Charles II in 1662.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1She brought tea over and she also brought the porcelain saucers, the teacups, the teapots, the proper way to do everything, the whole nine yards.
Speaker 2So England kind of inherited it from Portugal.
Speaker 1And Portugal took it from China. Okay, well, yeah, yeah, I do know that China is like the epicenter of tea. Yes, china had it in the 1300s, is what I read.
Speaker 2Pasta gunpowder. They had everything. They've got it all.
Speaker 1So Catherine brings this over and with her, like I said, she brings over the porcelain teapot, the teacups, the saucers, the spoons.
Speaker 2She shows people how to mix things with tea, the whole pumping circumstance Like honey sugar milk.
Speaker 1I don't know exactly what she used at that time, but she spruced it up did more to it.
Speaker 2It's more than just dregs of twigs and seeds.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2From the forest floor and roots. Yeah, she showed them it can be enjoyable it can be a beverage you prefer, not just something you take when you have cramps.
Speaker 1Yep People notice that she would drink it daily and multiple times a day. They're like why Is she sick? Is she okay?
Speaker 2So they're like what is this bitch doing? Why is this woman just drinking Pepto-Bismol out of the bottle all day? What's wrong with her? Yeah, her innards must be rancid. It's like Just really enjoy it.
Speaker 1Yep, once the royals, the people all around her the aristocracy. Yes, Once they figured out what she was doing and actually took time to be like oh, what is this? They really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2It's new fad, yeah.
Speaker 1However, it was still very, very expensive.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's the upper crust.
Speaker 1Yes, so only the higher-ups can do it. They would hand their tea down to their servants after they've used it, though.
Speaker 2Take a sip as you clean out the cup.
Speaker 1Yeah, here's a swig yeah.
Speaker 2Have a taste of the good life.
Speaker 1Yeah, not everyone was really enjoying tea in the way that they think of it today. It was starting to seep in, though. It was happening. It started to steep in. Oh yeah, steep in no wait a minute.
Speaker 2You steep coffee. Yeah, you steep.
Catherine of Braganza Brings Tea Culture
Speaker 1You steep tea or not? Tea, tea, tea, cut. That cut that. Thomas Twining in 1706, opened his first business. What was it? Tom's Coffee House.
Speaker 2Wow. Original name 6 opened his first business. What was it? Tom's coffee house. Wow original name just tom tom's coffee house that seems so modern yeah I feel like back then I'd be like thomas, the whole name. Yeah, maybe that's how he stood out was by being tom's but he's selling coffee hut tom's coffee house.
Speaker 1It straddled the border between Westminster and the city of London.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1On the Strand. That's the street name the Strand.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1I don't know how they do streets in London so I don't know. I tried to figure it out, but it's just called the Strand.
Speaker 2All right.
Speaker 1Anyway, this area was a wealthy, newly populated area that grew up very rapidly after the Great London Fire of 1666. Oh, 666. I know, I didn't realize that.
Speaker 2Big fires from history don't really impress me because I'm like well, the town's still there.
Speaker 1Well, I just think the date—.
Speaker 2The Chicago Fire, the London Fire, I'm like they're still there.
Speaker 1Yeah, but I thought we were talking about the numbers. Yeah, no, we are, oh, okay.
Speaker 2But just in general, when someone references like the Great Fire, I'm like, well, it didn't destroy it, they built it back up.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2If like what's in Rome, Pompeii.
Speaker 1Oh, I was thinking of the lost city of Atlantis. Yeah, pompeii, and Herculaneum Like yeah, those are better because they stayed destroyed, didn't they? Yeah, they, yeah, I guess I don't know what your argument is right here?
Speaker 2I don't know anyway, just that I want like great fires in history, that's it coffee was more popular during this time.
Speaker 1There were around 2 000 coffee houses in london wow so right, coffee was very popular. That coffee was the drink for england just like here in america. Huh, that's how it started.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Coffee house is everywhere, so Tom wanted to stand out with his coffee house. Maybe it was by being Tom, I don't know, but what he thought was he would bring in something new.
Speaker 2Yeah, side beverage Like some tea. Like some tea.
Speaker 1Huh, when Thomas opened his coffee house, he sold brewed ready-to-drink coffee and tea, but he also was selling dry coffee and dry tea leaves which they haven't done. Unheard of. Yeah, he was the first one. Well, people believe he's the first one. You can't ever fully fully confirm that, because there might be someone in the backwoods doing something, who knows.
Speaker 2But he made a name for himself.
Speaker 1He was the first one to really do it make it yourself at home coffee and not just consume on the premises. Yeah, okay, that's how he started to stand out, and this was very beneficial, because women were not allowed in coffee houses at that time. Society deemed it inappropriate and only a space for men there was. You know, men wanted to talk about important issues at the time and topics and government politics. And there's drinking here too. You know, they would sell alcoholic beverages at these coffee houses as well.
Speaker 2Like the salons of France.
Speaker 1Yeah, very much like the salons of France is how this was viewed Women not allowed. Yeah viewed women not allowed yeah, but if you sell, things to go. These women can purchase the dry coffee and the dry tea leaves and take it home to host their own parties and events, or to just have for themselves. Yeah, they still couldn't enter, though, but they would have, like their footmen, run in real quick by them and bring them out.
Speaker 2He's expanding his clientele base yes, like right there you're doubling your potential customers yeah, because the women loved it.
Speaker 1That's what brought him more success. Because they were like oh, we love this new trend of tea, we love coffee, but like tea was like the new thing. So they wanted to show off and have people at their parlors and enjoy, you know, tea in their coffee or in in their coffee room tea in their coffee.
Speaker 2Put a little tea in that coffee tea in their drawing rooms.
Speaker 1They like to just enjoy it, it's the new thing, and Thomas even had quite a few of London's movers and shakers visit the coffee house because he was known to have the best quality tea. Even long after Tom's death, the twining tea empire was still very, very well known. Jane Austen would go to Tom's coffee house to get her tea there. Obviously, they were not alive at the same time.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1She wrote a letter to her sister when she was visiting her brother in England in 1841. It was.
Speaker 2I'll read it to you, Jane Austen very boring.
Speaker 1It says I am sorry there has been a rise in tea like money. I do not intend to pay twining until later in the day when we may order a fresh supply. That's it.
Speaker 2Oh. But proof that she, you know, proof that she enjoyed her tea, enjoyed her tea from Twining. She's not paying more, yeah.
Speaker 1No, she is.
Speaker 2Oh.
Speaker 1But she has to wait until later in the day because the price raised yeah. Yeah, but that's it. Yeah, I thought that was kind has crossing in time. Yeah, all, right, now we're gonna go back to 1717. Okay, selling tea became very successful for thomas, so much so that he was able to acquire the two adjacent houses next to his coffee house. Okay, allowing him to make it one big shop, and he knocked down the walls yep, knocked him down, made it big.
Speaker 1He had like his coffee house on one side and like the shop on the other for the dry tea leaves and the dry coffee. Women were allowed into the into shops. That's why he did this. He's creating more foot traffic through that side and then still has the coffee house on the other side. Today it's just one big open shop. It's still open, oh yeah.
Speaker 2Oh, the original Nice.
Speaker 1I forgot to mention that.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1It's been around for 319 years. The original, yeah, the original. That's why it's A coffee and tea house the address is 216 Strand, but it's not Strand Street or Road or Avenue, I don't know, just Strand. Maybe in England they're smarter and they're like obviously there's pavement and there's a road of some kind, does it need to be an avenue? Does it need to be a road. Who cares? Yeah, sorry, anyway, little things that trip up stupid Americans, you know that's me, but yeah, they're still there.
Speaker 1The same building, the same, it's all there from 319 years ago.
Speaker 2Older than our country the coffee shop, so are their universities too.
Tom's Coffee House Revolution
Speaker 1When Thomas redid like updated his coffee house, he adorned the entryway of this combo shop with a gold-plated lion to showcase the regalness of tea and coffee, and he also updated the name, changing it to the Golden Lion Tea and Coffee House.
Speaker 2Made me think of a Nico Cay song, Last Lion of Albion, because it's all about how the British used lion imagery a lot.
Speaker 1Oh, okay.
Speaker 2They were hunted to extinction from their island. Oh, I didn't realize they used it so much for things. Yeah, it's like on their money, I think. Oh, okay, yeah, it's on a bunch of stuff and I didn't know lions were.
Speaker 1There were lions on Britain.
Speaker 2Yeah, like thousands of years ago.
Speaker 1But still, I didn't know that. And they've been hunted. Yeah Well, that's what they do. Yeah, anyway.
Speaker 2It's what we do, yeah.
Speaker 1Now we're in the year 1741.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1Thomas Twining dies and his son, daniel, takes over.
Speaker 2Just dies, a natural, not a big deal. Okay, he dies, he's old, his time has come.
Speaker 1Yeah, I was more interested with the story of how this family stayed so consistently true to their morals, values, beliefs, while still running a successful business and being I mean, they're probably billionaires, I'm guessing. I didn't look up the value, but it's yeah.
Speaker 1I'm guessing they're really, really doing well Now. When Daniel took over, he was able to establish connections and he began exporting tea overseas. His ledgers show that in 1749, twinings tea was being sold to America and specifically the governor of Boston was a very loyal customer. In 1773, when the Boston Tea Party happened, Twining tea.
Speaker 1Yeah, the Boston Tea Party for anyone who doesn't know, is when in America we were really mad about the taxation without representation, bullshit, blah, blah, blah. I mean like fair, we don't want to get taxed, whatever, and we just dumped all of the british tea into the water harbour yeah, and we were just like no taxation. We don, we don't like tariffs, we don't like taxes, we don't like this. And it pretty much was the beginning of, like, the rumblings of the revolution.
Speaker 2Of course the guys who did it dressed up as Native Americans, because twinings tea, oh, and they did not throw it in the harbor, okay because of how good it was okay a local writer at the time even noted quote it was not the twinings tea the boston rebels tossed into the sea.
Speaker 1Nice Sing-songy yeah. I thought that was cute, Jumping back to 1762,. Daniel passes away and his widow, Mary Twining, takes over.
Speaker 2Okay, so she married into it.
Speaker 1Yep and she takes over Very progressive of 1762.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Yep, she had a lot of naysayers. They did not like not in the family, but just people. But Mary was great, she had a good business mind and she continued to run that business for the next 21 years.
Speaker 2Oh.
Speaker 1Yeah, she was.
Speaker 2Until a man righted the ship right.
Speaker 1No, I mean she let it go on her own. Yeah, the family themselves were totally fine with.
Speaker 2Mary doing this.
Speaker 1It wasn't the family, like they're fantastic and I'm assuming there's going to be someone from England that's like actually there's a pedophile or something. I don't know.
Speaker 2They would say pedophile oh a pedo.
Speaker 1A pedophile?
Speaker 2I don't know Aluminium I don't know how they say it. This is all a plug for us to get like a lifetime supply of twining tea sent, isn't it?
Speaker 1Oh yeah, I'll take it. I mean, from what I have seen, I don't have an issue with anyone in this family so far. So, mary, during her time, during her reign of the twining tea empire, the tea taxation peaked. It got really big, and so it was very common for tea to be smuggled into the country from like france or holland, and smugglers would often tamper with the tea adding dry leaves, twigs and bark, just yeah, cutting it, reducing it, cutting it it's like a drug cut your product, move those kilos yes, and that's what they were doing.
Speaker 1However, this was not the twining way, and Mary knew that.
Speaker 2Cutting our product.
Richard Twining and Tax Reform
Speaker 1Yep. She refused to taint the quality of her tea. She was not a tea tainter.
Speaker 2No tea. Tainting with Mary? No, yeah, no tea taint Mary.
Speaker 1She wrote in her journal that she was proud of herself for never buying smuggled tea and that her tea was always of the finest quality.
Speaker 2She's very Ben and Jerry's.
Speaker 1Yeah, we need that. I love Ben and Jerry's. They have a new dairy-free ice cream that we have to get.
Speaker 2Oh.
Speaker 1It's like chocolate something.
Speaker 2You communist? I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1Anyway, I know, I know we love them. I'm just kidding. Anyway, I know, I know we love them, yeah. In 1783, now we're jumping forward a few more years.
Speaker 2America 1783.
Speaker 1We're not. We don't care about them.
Speaker 2I just want to say that we're on the world stage now At this point in history. What's America doing right about now? Existing, Existing. We just won the war.
Speaker 1Yeah, we're trying yeah 1783, richard twining takes over. That's mary's son dick twining and this is thomas twining's grandson. So we're in the third generation here, okay now richard becomes a prominent person of the tea trade and was the chairman of the london tea dealers. At a time when smuggling and tampering with tea was pretty high on the political agenda, he was in a position where he could lean into it, yeah or not.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1Mm-hmm Tea. Taxes were still very, very high, but Richard felt that everyone should be able to afford tea.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's the people's drink now.
Speaker 1Tea for all.
Speaker 2Yeah. Tea for all, it's just water poured over some like I don't know.
Speaker 1There's a lot of things that go in there, it's just like water poured over potpourri. I mean, but you know, there's more to it yet.
Speaker 1Do it. Yet Now Richard proposed to the prime minister at the time to cut the T-tax, to take it down from 119% to 12.5%. Wow, that's what he wanted. Richard argued that lowering the tax would mean more sales and that if there were high levels of taxes, that that only served to encourage the smuggling they're like. Well, if there's high taxes, people aren't going to pay them, they're going to just smuggle them in. But if we lower the taxes, people will buy the quality products. This isn't hard.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's pretty basic, it's not difficult yeah.
Speaker 1Well, the prime minister at the time did something that I've never seen in this country. He listened, oh, and he went. Oh, I changed my mind.
Speaker 2He didn't believe I already made my decision.
Speaker 1Right, he didn't double down.
Speaker 2I'm dug in and I'll never change yeah. Yep, a good decision once is a good decision forever.
Speaker 1Yep. New information brought to you doesn't change anything. Nope, new information. You just dig in, actually, get your gun out and point it at him. Yeah, yeah, well, this prime minister. He said yeah, no, you're kind of right, let's see what happens here.
Speaker 2Let's try it out.
Speaker 1Let's try it out. The prime minister would pass the Commutation Act of 1784, effectively slashing the taxes on tea, and the tea sales went through the roof. Oh and that is how tea became the national drink as it is today.
Speaker 2Oh, is it officially like England's national drink?
Speaker 1I don't know. I just said that I honestly didn't, colloquially. I don't know if they have like a national drink, do we?
Speaker 2I don't know.
Speaker 1Can you look it up?
Speaker 2Do countries have national drinks? I'm sure they have national everything.
Speaker 1If one has one, it would be England, I think, and it would be tea, but I don't know. I just assume. I just call it the national drink.
Speaker 2England's natural beverage.
Speaker 1National.
Speaker 2Okay, it does. The UK does consider tea its national drink.
Speaker 1Okay, moving on. So with the cut of the taxes of the tea, the sales went through the roof and tea became popular. Everyone can drink it now. And then, of course, catherine from 1662 brought over the tradition of it, the the nice, you know yeah saucers, teacups, all that fun stuff. All the pieces are there, and now it just has to grow word of mouth richard did become richard twining.
Speaker 1He did become a shareholder in the east india company in 1793 okay and he was the director of the east india company, or he was a director, I think they had multiple I don't know much about the east india company. I just know what he did, but he was the or a director from 1810 to 1817. And this is when I was like, I'll find it.
Speaker 2Yeah, this is it. This is when the skeletons come out of the closet.
Speaker 1I don't think they were part of the slave trade, but they were a part of the East India Company. Yeah, During his time as director he worked to make the East India Company less of a monopoly and by giving more control to the British government okay, because the East India Company was just running wild yeah, doing whatever they wanted.
Speaker 2State almost yes and the directors.
Speaker 1Oh, there's multiple directors. The directors would be in charge of their little pods yeah, and so he was.
Speaker 1Hey, we got to get a hold on this. They're treating people like shit, they're being awful. This is really unnecessarily horrible and we need to have better control over our own fucking people. And so he was trying to get the British government to have more control of the East India Company. He cleaned it up a bit, made it to where directors don't have quite as much power and the government does. Instead, as richard twining was fighting the good fight, um, to make the east india company better, he was also working at the store at the golden lion coffee tea house. All that and he was adding more pizzazz to it. In 1787, richard twining commissioned the store entrance to move from the side of the building to the front, so the door was on the side at one point.
Speaker 1So he moved it to the front. So it's officially on the strand, officially the door, and it's still there today okay, cool the new store entrance, he added two Chinese figures of men sitting on either side of a gold-plated lion that's lying down. The Chinese men are meant to be in honor of China for the tea, and then the lion because it's remembering Thomas his original idea and his original story, and he changed the name of it one more time as well richard to what now?
Speaker 2the golden lion let's make it easier, and that's what it is today. It's cleaner yes. He should still drop the.
Speaker 1It's cleaner, yeah, just golden lion, yeah, the golden lion, and lion is spelled l-y-o-n oh, is that how it's spelled in? England. I don't think so, maybe back then I have a really dumb American moment.
Speaker 2I've never seen. I mean, I've read British novels that have wine in it.
Speaker 1Yeah, I've read. Yeah, I've never. I've never seen it with a wine Stylized way. Yeah, just maybe older time. Yeah, just fun. Okay, you're right, I have read, like British things and I've never seen yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2And there are. Ok, I got really nervous about saying how there's lions on British money and I'm like is?
Speaker 1there, I don't know.
Speaker 2There are. There's lions on their coins and yeah, ok yeah, it's on their royal coat of arms. It's not money, but yeah, there is.
Speaker 1They've got lions everywhere. They're big on to lions okay, yeah, well, now the store is called the golden lion and it has been this same storefront and logo since 1787, so it has been what it is right now for 238 years wow and walmart will last that long I hope not come on um.
Speaker 1The twinings logo is one of the oldest unchanged british commercial logos in continuous use in the uk I can't even picture it. I know I need to know what it looks like oh, yes, you can look it up, but I will also post photos of these so you, if you want to know, it'll be on our instagram.
Speaker 2Borrowed bones podcast yeah, it's just okay.
Speaker 1It's classic, standard, clean looking. It looks good.
Speaker 2Established 1706. Mm-hmm London. Yes yeah, london, england.
Speaker 1London, England.
Speaker 2Got to add another syllable.
Speaker 1You talk like y'all from London. I had to do it.
Speaker 2It's Paul Rudd, right yeah?
Speaker 1Or no, you sound like, I don't know whatever.
Speaker 2Yeah, he's talking to Russell Brand when he has the little coral and is like oh, it's right through my leg.
Speaker 1is that what he says?
Speaker 2Yeah, Russell Brand's oh yeah, he's a predator now too. Yeah, he's like doing Charlie Kirk tours too. Yeah, Whatever.
Speaker 1Forgetting Sarah Marshall's a good movie. Yeah, anyway, jumping ahead to the year 1818, Richard Twining II takes over the business.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1And during his ownership he was selling tea to the prime minister, charles Gray II, the second Earl Gray.
Speaker 2Oh spoiler, so his name's not Earl Grey. Oh spoiler, so his name's not Earl, it's his title.
Speaker 1It's his title. His name is Charles Okay.
Speaker 2Charles Earl.
The Twining Sisters' Philanthropy
Speaker 1Charles Grey, when the prime minister sent an envoy on a diplomatic mission to China in 1831, this envoy apparently heroically saved the life of a Chinese person. I don't know how, I don't know the story. And as a token of thanks, they were gifted a bag of tea along with the recipe Okay, which before that was a well-guarded secret, apparently, like it was oh, you can't have this, but the Chinese were like thank you.
Speaker 2Here you go. You saved one of us. Here you go here you go.
Speaker 1When this special tea blend made its way back to england it became very, very popular with the prime minister earl gray and his people. They all loved it. His circles were just digging it. And then soon the prime minister Earl Grey II was asking Twining to reproduce the tea so he could sell it to others and he could have more of it Like he was. Like we got to keep this shit going. He gives it to Twining to reproduce it. So some people I've read think that Twining created it.
Speaker 1He replicated it Right, but it is English.
Speaker 2I mean Earl Grey is, you know, but it's made off a Chinese recipe. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 1I mean, like all of the tea basically is but, they just didn't create the recipe. They just distributed it, sold it, named it you know, popularized it Appropriate.
Speaker 2They are white. That's what we do.
Speaker 1It was a gift to them, though, too, so it doesn't feel wrong, you know it feels okay, but yes, but also it's okay, that's what us whites do is we don't invent anything, we get gifted or we take things and then we just do a little spin on it.
Speaker 1Other tea companies might even claim that they came up with the tea blend, but in 2013, philip Gray, the seventh Earl Gray he officially endorsed twinings as the original blend. Like nope, they had the original blend that was gifted. They're the ones that have it. And then other predecessors of Earl Greys before them have also been like nope, twinings, they're the ones that do it. So I say the twinings are the ones that had it the first time, nice.
Speaker 2Had it the first time, nice.
Speaker 1In 1837, queen Victoria made twinings an official royal warrant holder. Now this meant that the twinings were now appointed with supplying the tea for her household. Royal warrant holder, you had to have been supplying a household a royal household for at least five years to demonstrate consistent quality service. So that just shows how good quality they are. I just wanted to kind of note again they're sticking with their quality. They don't waver at all.
Speaker 1Jumping ahead to the 1860s, we are going to talk about Elizabeth Twining. She was never an owner, but she was an heiress to the Twining family fortune. She was one of the daughters of Mary and Richard. She was one of nine. She's just a good human, so I wanted to highlight her. She has all the money, doesn't have to work and she chooses to be a philanthropist. And she was also into drawing, painting, but she would always draw and paint flowers, plants. She really liked to be outside, but she was also a champion for social reform. In 1866, elizabeth would have been 60 years old at this time. She turned her family home into an informal training school for impoverished girls who wanted to enter into service, like work, the workforce, and she also cared for retired domestic servants, oh yeah, so she gave up her house for these people.
Speaker 2Right. I thought back then, if they retired, you were just thrown out. Yeah, that's why she took care of them. Go die in the street now. Yes, yep, you are correct, that's why she took care of them Go die in the street now.
Speaker 1Yes, yep, you are correct.
Speaker 2That's why she took care of them Nice.
Speaker 1There was no retirement.
Speaker 2Yeah, like retirement. What year was that? Once they were done? Yeah, once they couldn't, when they were worked to death.
Speaker 1Yes, that's it, yeah. Yeah, there was no yeah.
Speaker 2They were worked to death.
Speaker 1Elizabeth also established a Provident Hospital named St John's to provide medical care for those who couldn't afford a doctor. So Provident Hospital is specifically for people that don't have money or insurance. Elizabeth's main focus was mothers and children. Elizabeth's main focus was mothers and children. She was the first person to organize mothers meetings in London and she took part in founding the Bedford College for Girls, which is the first higher education school for women in the UK oh, I've heard of that one.
Speaker 2I've heard of Bedford.
Speaker 1I thought I've heard of it too. Yeah, I guess I didn't look into it I'm assuming it's still around yeah now, these mothers meetings included spiritual education, story reading, sewing instruction and sometimes field trips, so like just helping, like how to live. Yeah now, elizabeth's sister, louisa, who's a younger sister, was also very big into helping and philanthropic, is that a word?
Speaker 2Yeah, philanthropic.
Speaker 1Nice and she focused mainly on helping the poor and the elderly. So they kind of are dividing and conquering here.
Speaker 2They weren't helping the rich.
Speaker 1No, they weren't.
Speaker 2Wait a minute. Why aren't they helping the rich, though? They're the ones who struggle and work the most? I mean right, fellow Americans.
Speaker 1They should be sacrificing for the rich.
Speaker 2If the poor and the sick needed help, God would help them.
Speaker 1Obviously they're not good people.
Speaker 2God put them there to suffer for a reason. And who are you? And God made the rich rich for a reason. It's your duty to get them richer. I mean, it's self-evident.
Speaker 1This is what the Twining family needs to figure out.
Speaker 2This is their problem. They probably worship Satan Helping those that God fucked over.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2It doesn't look like you trust in God's design purpose.
Speaker 1These Twinings.
Speaker 2Twining it around.
Speaker 1Well, louisa, she was great. She was into helping the poor and the elderly. There was quite an age gap between the two of them too. Elizabeth was born in 1805 and Louisa was born in 1820. So they had like a 15 year age difference, but they still did the damn thing. Louisa was very appalled by the conditions of workhouses. She spearheaded reform for that. She was like this is ridiculous. These workhouses can be better.
Speaker 2We need.
Speaker 1We need to do better. Louisa founded homes to care for the old and the sick. In 1893, luisa was elected the first female poor law guardian. Which poor law guardians were boards of people responsible for administering assistance to local residents who could not support themselves.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1Yeah, she's just like doing good things with other good people.
Speaker 2I feel like these are like time travelers or something I know, like they're not real, like you're not real.
Speaker 1You're not real. Louisa was also the president of a local branch of the National Union of Women Workers that began in 1895. So this was established to combat the working conditions for women. It's still a thing, but it's like now been associated or absorbed or changed into the International Council of Women, icw. Louisa was also she did a lot awarded the title of the Lady of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in England.
Speaker 2That's too many ofs. I know you got to pick one of in your title. That should be real, for whatever your title is whether it's a job royalty you get one of.
Speaker 1The Lady of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in England.
Speaker 2Four ofs.
Speaker 1This title, though, was also given to Florence Nightingale. Oh, because it's for people who volunteer in hospitals and ambulances and work relief.
Speaker 2Yeah, I really thought you would say Florence Henderson, what Isn't she? From the Partridge family? Yeah, yeah, that's why.
Speaker 1I'm confused. I thought I was thinking of the wrong person. When I hear the name Florence.
Speaker 2That's where my name goes to, not Nightingale.
Speaker 1Oh, you didn't think I was going to say.
Speaker 2Oh okay, oh, you didn't think I was gonna say oh okay, I mean, it makes more sense, I should have guessed Nightingale cause.
Speaker 1That makes sense. That is, she has the Partridge family right, not the Brady Bunch. Who's the Brady Bunch mom? Hold on let me look we're forgetting everything today.
Speaker 2I think it's oh she was she was the Brady Bunch hey, yes, see, you're really fucking with me, man sorry, oh, I thought we were paused this whole time, but uh, no, we're not paused, no, we're recording. Sorry, I have the name, but the wrong role she was carol brady, not yes mrs partridge we, I don't know.
English Breakfast Origin Story
Speaker 1Yeah, I watched both growing up. My mom liked both of them, so I was like wait a minute, hold on. I couldn't let it go either. I was like I don't think it's the partridge family and I just. But anyway, we got there. So yes, louisa shares the same title as florence nightingale, which is another fantastic thing. Now we're going to jump ahead quite a bit, because nothing really happens between the late 1890s and the early 1930s.
Speaker 2Tea is tea.
Speaker 1Yeah, they kind of just maintain, Maintain. Now it is 1933, and the Twinings English Breakfast Blend comes to be, so a lot of people eat, or a lot of people drink tea, the blend of English breakfast. Have you seen that? Yeah, yeah, that's another popular one like Earl Grey.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1That's another popular one, like Earl Grey. Now, the Twinings did not actually invent the breakfast blend, but they did improve upon it same way with the Earl Grey tea.
Speaker 2They added cinnamon.
Speaker 1I don't know what they added.
Speaker 2Did you just add one more spice? We added some nutmeg. Now it's different.
Speaker 1No, I think they more so made it unified Because, before you know, other people have recipes for the same thing, but it's not necessarily the same.
Speaker 1The story of English breakfast is that in 1843, an English immigrant, mr Davies, was living in New York City and he wanted some really good tea. He was homesick. He's like these Americans are into coffee, I want tea. He was homesick. He's like these Americans are into coffee, I want tea. So he puts together a blend and he begins selling it in America and he's calling it English breakfast. Because why would you name something English breakfast if you live in England? It would just be breakfast tea or morning tea, so he names it English breakfast. There's a lot of arguments online as to where this actually came from, the english breakfast blend, and one of the arguments is like it obviously didn't come from england. Because why would it be called english breakfast?
Speaker 1I don't know, I'm just that.
Speaker 2Makes sense to me I mean, do english muffins come from england? I don't know if they do, then there goes that whole point. Well, either way there's multiple stories.
Speaker 1This one seems to make the most sense to me, but there are multiple stories, so if you think you know the real one, let me know. But I have read pretty much all of them and this is the one that I think fits Mr Davies'. English breakfast became so popular that he was able to make it a business and he started the Canton Tea Company. However, he was not good at business and he made poor decisions and the business failed. But Twinings already discovered the English breakfast recipe because they bought some from the Canton Company, knowing that it was popular. They'd heard about it.
Speaker 1And so they bought some from the Canton Company and the Twining Company sent it over to their experts that they had in China to decipher what the blend was and recreate it. So they stole it kind of. But also the first company did fail and if twinings didn't take that recipe when they did, we wouldn't have English Breakfast Blend, I think that's why I like that we wouldn't have English breakfast blend.
Speaker 1No, I think that's why I like that story. It makes the most sense to me. 1939, the Twinings tea helped keep spirits high during World War II, because now we're during the war times. During this time, the Twinings, they supplied tea for the Red Cross and the Red Cross was sending these prisoner of war parcels, and so tea was being sent in those little packages. There was also tea supplied for the Women's Voluntary Service. The YMCA had a mobile wartime called canteen.
Speaker 1It's like a van that goes around supplies, and tea was a part of that. They knew that tea was something that people come together for and they were like yep, we'll help, we'll do this, we'll send it, we'll do whatever. So they helped with the war.
Speaker 2Yeah, nice. That's nice, everyone pulled together.
Speaker 1Yeah 1956, the Twinings make tea bags in the UK for the first time. I found this interesting. It doesn't have anything to do with the family, really. Really. They just made tea bags in the uk for the first time. America had already had tea bags. Because we're a go-go-go kind of crowd and because twinings were selling to americans as well, they're like well, fuck, all, right now we're losing our market in america because we don't have tea bags. So I don't know. I just thought it was interesting that they waited so long, that the uk was like we're into the like. I think I wrote in here when we started having them in america, like in 1908 and I think, and I don't know how true this is for the 1930s yeah I read this in trivia that uh, tea bags were not meant to be like steeped like we yeah do now.
Speaker 2They were meant to just be ripped or cut open and you'd pour the contents into the water, and then people just started leaving it with the string well, the one theory.
Speaker 1There's multiple little theories, I think the one that I believe is similar to what yours is in america anyway. Um, in 1908 a tea merchant from new york shipped his tea samples to his customers in small silk pouches, and most people did them differently and in larger quantities, but he thought this would be easier to transport, and I don't know how this happened.
Modern Twining Ethics and Initiatives
Speaker 1But the customers just put them in the cups at some point and let it steep that way and they decided they liked it better that way and started requesting the silk pouches. And then, a few years go by, we get that paper filter that we have today, but that took a little bit while, a little while to get there. So yeah, I don't know, it just took twining a while to get tea bags. I kind of like that because they're like old school, old school and staying traditional. But it was america who was like we want tea bags. They're like fuck fine. I just thought that was interesting. The company itself grows quite a bit. In 1964 so we're jumping ahead they were acquired by a larger, a larger company called associated british foods, like a conglomerate, and I thought that was really cool because they still stand, they're huge and they still stand strong to their morals and I think it's baffling to my American brain.
Speaker 1I can't understand how they're growing and not being corrupt and awful humans.
Speaker 2I don't get why.
Speaker 1Are there names?
Speaker 2on the Epstein files. There aren't any. Who's Jeffrey Epstein? I know you didn't say a first name just there, but that's because he doesn't have one. He, she, what? There's no one never been named, that Stop it. She, what? There's no one never been named, that stop it. No one's ever been named epstein. His wife isn't in prison for sex trafficking.
Speaker 1Nothing to no one we just jumped a minute, yeah anyway lost time in 1997, jumping ahead again, the Twinings became a founding member of the Ethical Tea Partnership, an organization working to create a fairer, more sustainable tea industry for the tea workers, farmers and the environment.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1Yeah, like, okay, nice, like all these things. I'm like what, what? Yeah, in 2004, the Twinings started the Save the Children partnership in China.
Speaker 2Someone needs to think of them, the children.
Speaker 1Yeah, think of the children. Well, the Twinings truly are. Yeah. Yeah, we say that in jest, but they're doing it.
Speaker 2People who have them aren't.
Speaker 1Yeah, over half a million children have been helped so far because of this, starting in 2004. They help communities by providing better nutrition, giving lessons or classes to mothers on breastfeeding and what to do if your child won't breastfeed. That's just a few examples, but all of that.
Speaker 2Let nature do what it will Eat or it won't. I mean yeah, so learn to eat, or it won't.
Speaker 1I mean, yeah. In 2010, Twinings partnered with UNICEF to improve the lives of girls and young women living on tea estates, specifically in Assam, India. I didn't look too far into it, but it sounds like there's a lot that goes on in there.
Speaker 2Probably.
Speaker 1Because a lot of the Twinings focus for, for improving things is like a some India area, but either way they're trying to make sure that all of their production line across the globe is uniform, good yes fully transparent as a company and they came up with a list of approved tea gardens, showing that they care about their workers all the way, from beginning to end, and they will let anyone go and see the working conditions and they'll they have maps to show like they're like.
Speaker 2This is where it is, this is where everything is. You can, like, look up like I don't know about their tea gardens, yes, yep. Thailand, if they have any, yeah, wherever they are.
Speaker 1you can find them, they will show them to you. And I don't believe there's any laws or government oversight saying these companies have to do this.
Speaker 2Probably not. It's just the twining company doing it and they have companies in different continents.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's just them saying hey, we're just showing you guys that we're good, we're just showing you guys that we're good yeah. We're just letting you know we have nothing to hide, so we'll show you everything.
Speaker 2So what do they have to hide?
Speaker 1then Exactly, no one does this. I can't handle this.
Speaker 2No one preemptively releases information, just to say look how not bad I am.
Speaker 1I know Like gold over here, and then where's? The black, like where's the dark? I don't know. It's like that. Yeah, but I can't find it. In 2016, they launched a program called Sourced with Care, and it's a responsible sourcing program aiming to improve the lives of communities who grow its tea and herbs. They also support empowerment of women, farmers, workers. That's all a part of it. Yeah, young people protecting workers' rights, improving incomes, like they want everyone to be good.
Speaker 2Sounds like they're helping everyone again. But the rich, yeah. Where's their rich charity? Someone just like you, for a dollar a day, could help save a billionaire.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Can't you find it in your heart to donate 50 cents?
Speaker 1a day to keep this rich person from having to pay for anything. In 2018, the Twinings became the second major tea company to put up a list, oh and map. So yeah, this is when they added the map in 2018. Okay, oh wait, actually no, they do make multiple lists and maps, but I think they the map in 2018. Okay, oh wait, Actually no, they do multiple lists and maps but I think they did it in phases.
Speaker 1So I think in 2018, they did this of the Indian plantations that are supplying their tea blends. So they just keep adding more and more and more to their transparency journey here. A quote on their website about this says that transparency is part of the journey to improving the lives of tea communities we are sourcing from, and it and it is important to drive the change we all aspire to see. So, if you want the change, be the change. Wow, wow.
Speaker 2If you want to make the world a better place take a look at yourself and make that change quoted a pedophile yes he didn't change anything, no, except those boys pants but he's american.
Speaker 1Yeah, I don't know. I know there's bad english people. I've talked about them, it's fine. I just I love this. Who's that one?
Speaker 2prince of England. Right now he's not like one of the two main ones, but he's on the Epstein. Sorry, he who should not be named.
Speaker 1Oh, yeah, with an A yeah is it Anthony, andrew, andrew? It's not Andrew. I don't know.
Speaker 2It's not.
Speaker 1There's no file.
Speaker 2There's no list, yeah.
Speaker 1Anyway, allegedly In 2019, the Herbs Supply Chain Project was launched in Guatemala, similar to the list of the tea plantations and all that stuff. But they keep moving along one by one. In 2020, the twining company achieves a major ethical milestone 100% of their tea is now sourced from certified gardens. 500,000 plus people are now positively impacted by the program Sourced with Care, and all of this is all a part of all of their programs. They are finally hitting. They're like okay, everyone in our company, from all the way down the line, is taken care of. At least they're trying to be, anyway.
Speaker 1In 2023, the Twinings published their first human rights report and they gave a detailed guide on how they expect to be as a company and how they can help the communities that they're impacting, because they are in areas that this is a problem.
Speaker 2Yeah, in areas that this is a problem.
Stephen Twining and Today's Legacy
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. In 2024, the company came out with a modern slavery statement.
Speaker 2They're against it. Yes, I'm assuming, stating how they are against it. Okay, good, I was on the fence.
Speaker 1This is it. The ball drops here. How do they fall?
Speaker 2into slavery. Yeah, everything else I know a lot of people are, you know, on the fence about that topic, so I'm glad that they're on a side of history.
Speaker 1Yeah, and so the modern slavery statement in 2024 stating how they are against it and what they're doing to help with this problem. Now, today, currently, stephen Twining is the reigning heir of the company.
Speaker 2Was it a V or a PH PH? Okay.
Speaker 1And he is a 10th generation Twining and he serves as the brand ambassador and director of corporate relations at Twining's.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1He says he has had a lifelong passion for tea and he has about nine cups of tea a day it's good for him that he was born into a family.
Speaker 2It's all about tea, I mean shit. What if he had a passion for, like basketball or anything else? It's a good thing that, coincidentally, his passion is the thing he was born into.
Speaker 1I mean okay, I need everyone to look up youtube clips with him, because we're gonna watch I haven't shown you him because he is a delight, he is a gem. I again eve. I was like, okay, the guy that's around today is probably shitty. Right, because I don't know, it's 2025.
Speaker 1Everyone's shit, I don't know, the world's burning, I don't know, but he's so british, it's so just a character. I, just you. You have to watch it. It it's on YouTube, look up Stephen Twining or Twining Tea. He'll be a spokesperson on there and he'll just talk about it and you get to see the inside of the Golden Lion. He gives you a tour and you get to see it all and just everything about him. He's kind of adorable, he's like an older gentleman but yeah, he loves his job, he loves his company and he loves tea. And I don't think that the Twinings are going to, I don't think they're going to switch it up anytime soon. They're successful, they're not corrupt, they're not bad, they're not. I mean, I don't know what they all do with their money, but the company itself seems fucking legit yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, so yeah, twinings, sponsor us, us. I would love that. Yeah, if you want to see the photos and everything I'm going to post for the twining, I'll do a logo shot of the strand and get a photo of that and a few more things. Maybe I'll do a photo of steven twining himself. I'll do a screenshot from YouTube. But, yeah, follow us on our Instagram account. Borrowed Bones Podcast. Please rate. Review, like all the things on Apple Podcasts, spotify. It really helps us get pushed up and shoved into people's faces Clout.
Speaker 2Yeah, do they still call it that online on the internet Clout? It used to be a clout score. Remember that.
Speaker 1Oh, it probably is the same thing. I don't know if it's still called that or not, but I think it's a similar thing. The more engagement there is on the actual apps, it helps. So, yeah, anyway, thanks, bye, bye. Till next time Drink your tea Bye.
Speaker 2Bye.
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