News from Nothing But Tea

Tea Legends: Mazawattee Part Two

Mazawattedutyposter

An early PR coup for the Mazawattee Ceylon tea Company happened in March 1891 when tea buyer Alexander Jackson bid an astounding ten pounds twelve shillings and sixpence a pound (equivalent to around �950 per kg in 2012 terms) for an invoice of Ceylon Gartmore Estate Golden Tips brought to London on the clipper ship Cutty Sark. The Pall Mall Gazette called the price "unprecedented" but conceded that the tea possessed "extraordinary quality in liquor, and is composed almost entirely of small Golden Tips, and the preparation of such tea is, of course, most costly." Reverberations to this story ran in the national press for weeks. Another innovative promotion was to use Mazawattee Ceylon Tea delivery vans pulled by teams of African zebras which, while undoubtedly traffic stoppers in London, had little geographical connection with Ceylon. Latterly the zebra vans were replaced by motorized tea packets crowned by a large silver tea pot on the roof - the smoking exhaust pipe diverted through the spout!

As tea sales soared Mazawattee paid huge amounts in duty on imports. When Mazawattee made a record excise duty payment of �63,147 John Lane Densham turned this cost to profit by advertising the record and milking it for every ounce of free publicity. On 4 May 1898 the Daily Mail reported of Mazawatte: "They have filled the town with reverberant announcements about it; and pictorial representations about it confront one everywhere. If you get into a hansom, you find a cheque for �63,147 lying on your seat; if you ride in a bus, or tram, or penny steam boat, this sum haunts your gaze." Subsequently the duty sum was often exceeded and always exploited - in 1900 it was claimed in The Graphic to be equivalent to the company selling 1,300,000,000 cups of tea!

By 1894 Mazawattee had built a seven storey factory on Tower Hill to blend and pack tea and in 1901 opened a huge factory in New Cross that at its height employed 2,000 workers, not only packing tea but making and printing tins, and diversifying into cocoa and chocolate, spices, confectionary and cakes. John Lane Densham was in control during the halcyon years but ill health caused his stepping down in 1902 to travel abroad managing the company tea estates, arranging direct sales of tea to Russia, the USA and the British Colonies. During his absence the seeds of downfall were sown for Mazawattee. Dazzled by the lightning success of Joseph Lyons with his tea shops the new chairman Benjamin Densham was convinced that Mazawatte could follow suit - and did so in an unplanned frenzy that drained the company of capital - and caused panic among long established grocer customers suddenly confronted on their doorsteps by competing retailers of Mazawattee tea. John Lane returned to the Board, Benjamin was dismissed, and John continued until 1915.

After World War I the tax on tea was increased and the market was sluggish; with John Lane gone the company declined, though its name was still a household word. Their cocoa sales dropped and the confectionary business was abandoned in 1936. World War II brought tea control with companies allocated a quota based on annual sales and little opportunity for marketing. Then, in 1940 the Luftwaffe destroyed any hope of Mazawattee surviving - the Tower Hill factory was bombed and demolished and a few weeks later the New Cross factory was obliterated. Brooke Bond co-packed the Mazawattee label until 1951 when tea control ended. The end of the dynasty came in 1953 when John Boon Densham's grandson Joseph Alexander sold the few remaining assets and the Mazawattee name to the Excelsior Biscuit Company. Mazawattee tea continued to be co-packed and sold in economy stores like Woolworths until it quietly vanished in the early 1960s.

A sad end to a brand that had virtually shaped the British tea industry.

Tea Legends