A Gift from the Fam

My sister is no tea connoisseur. You'll see in "About Me" that I grew up on southern sweet tea. My sister did as well. Her interest in tea has never moved beyond that. So, though she's never said as much, I expect she thinks this little blog of mine is a bit quixotic.

Consequently, I was really touched this week when I opened a box from her and found... several boxes of Twinings tea (Earl Grey, of course) in the original packaging. Apparently, when I told her months ago of my frustration over the Twinings changes, she began scouring local groceries for the last remnants of the old tea. I suppose that in the South, where she now lives, stocks of Twinings and other fancy teas stay on the shelves longer than they do here in NYC.

Anyway, this week I was able to have a nice hot cuppa of Twinings Earl Grey from the original packaging. And I instantly noticed that the tea simply tasted better. Stronger, more flavor. A little bitter--which is good, and entirely lacking from tea out of the new packaging.

I still haven't undertaken more "scientific" testing, but this experience reassures me that the whole point of this blog remains valid. Further, comments continue to trickle in from all over the U.S. People take a sip of Twinings Earl Grey, and are so disappointed by the flavor that they do a little digging on Google to see if anybody else has had the same experience.

I still haven't heard back from Wayne Evans, the VP at Twinings who posted below. I hope the post was legit, and I do look forward to speaking with him more if he reaches out. I'll keep y'all posted.

Response from Twinings

I have just received a comment from Wayne Evans, a VP at Twinings North America. Due to problems with Blogger, I haven't been able to get it posted as he originally submitted, but I'll paste it here in its entirety:

Dear Sir,
I read your blog with interest and thank you for your obvious passion for tea and for Twinings. As VP Sales and Marketing for Twinings NA I can assure you that we have made no changes to the Earl Grey blend. I note that you live in NYC and would like to extend an invitation to join us in our offices in New Jersey to discuss this further. We would welcome the opportunity to restore your faith in Twinings and further enhance your enjoyment of our teas.

And a response to Wayne: Thanks for your comment and your interest. I would be interested in a field trip to Jersey, so maybe we should connect more directly. You can email me at savetwinings (at) gmail (dot) com.

NOTE: See post dated 12/16/06 for a follow-up regarding the submission from Mr. Evans.

Sorry - Blogger is Broken

Hello All,

Many apologies, but for the last few days, and possibly many more to come, Blogger is broken. For example, I have received a few comments that Blogger won't let me publish, and I can't add any comments of my own. So please check back in after a week or so. I want to hear what you have to say, and I have some thoughts of my own to share. And in the meantime, if you can complain to Google (which owns Blogger), that would be great too.