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Typhoo Tea Bordesley Street Digbeth

Kenh. I never worked for Typhoo but I loaded lorries there. It was a pig of a place because of the weight and size of the tea chests. The boss used to send two of us whenever possible to make it a little easier. It was van cargoe and the deckhands just bought a pallet of eight chests to the back and we had to carry them the length of the lorry. It got easier as we filled the van because each row got us closer to the pallet. Happy days.
 
My mother was a cleaner at Typhoo Tea.
She came home one day and told us about a coloured man who was a labourer and had been given a new wide broom-he said it was too heavy and sawed a foot off each end, so ending up with the normal size.
 
there you are you see. Everyone had common sense in those days.
 
My sister Barbara worked at TyPhoo and sometimes she brought home empty tea chests. They were used for everything; boards for gluing puzzles to, dens to play in, suitcases when we went hop-picking and one even followed me from Harwich to the Hook of Holland in the 60's when I emigrated for good. This last tea chest was filled with the last of our English household goods, plates, cups, knives and forks ETC and was our first table in Belgium at the end of 1967! I loved the smell inside the empty chests, a mixture of tea and plywood, we even found use for the silver paper lining.
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Graham, now you have said that I remember almost everyone used the things for anything and everyting, but the most usual use was moving house.
 
I worked at Ty.phoo Tea from the end of 1946 until 1954. It was still a family business in those days...Mr John Sumner was Chairman, his son Mr John Black Sumner was one of the Directors, as was I think a Mr Kneale and a Mr Kelley. Mr. Parkin was the General Manager and Mr French was Works Manager. I started off as Office Junior in Mr French's Office, his secretary was named Beryl and a Clerk was named Jeanne. Our office was on the packing floor. Some of the packing machines were automatic, but they still had packing by hand in those days. You must also remember the War had just finished and tea was still on ration. We were not allowed any extra tea because of the restrictions of rationing. I can clearly remember when the King and Ghandi died...someone used to bring round either the Birmingham Evening Mail or the Gazette for the bosses and that was how we got the news in those days. No instant news from the radio or the television like we get today. It was a good firm to work for although the pay was not very good. I have some happy memories of working there.

In the seventies the Union got in, there were disputes and I think strikes, with the result they closed down and moved to Speke in Liverpool.

Junie.
 
I think Typhoo Tea was specifically blended for Birmingham water.

ladywood
 
Ladywood.

Bulk tea was purchased in Mincing Lane, London. (Please bear with me, it was a long time ago...60 years... and this is what happened then.) In order that the Tea Tasters in London had the same results as the Tasters at Ty.phoo in Birmingham, carboys of Birmingham water was despatched to London on a regular basis in order for the London Tasters to obtain identical results. The tea was not specifically blended for the Birmingham area. It was interesting to watch the tasting of the different teas. Junie.
 
My mother worked at Typhoo from when she left school at 14 in 1933 to when she was married and left to have her first child in 1942. I still have the opened out Typhoo tea packet listing her workmates and how much they had donated as a leaving gift for her.
 
Beamish

What is your interest in Typhoo Tea? Did you work there? I remember Mr Pedvin, he is the one on the right.

Junie
 
Hi Junie,

Other than drinking Typhoo, all the info I have, I read in a book by Kenneth Williams entitled: The Story of Typhoo and The Birmingham Tea Industry.Pubslihed by Quiller Press ISBN: 1 - 870948 - 28 - 9
 
Thank you Beamish. I had forgotten about the book....I went to a talk about Typhoo and the tea industry at about the same time that the book was published. I will have to get it out from the library again sometime in the near future. Do not have time to read books at the present time! Have been told by a Librarian that Kenneth Williams is no longer with us.

Junie
 
Over Easter I did one of the Pevsner walks around Digbeth passing the Typhoo Tea Factory. This logo is displayed above the entrances - does anyone know what it means?

Thank youView attachment 48462
 
You are right there Graham. The product was originally Sumner's Typhoo Tips Tea, but the Sumner soon got missed off, and that is presumably when the TTT symbol came in. It was originally claimed to be Tannin-less tea (though if it truely was tanninless it would probably be a bit tasteless for British tastes) and to be less likely to cause digestion problems.
Mike
 
Thank you. There is a small 'S' at the bottom of the crescent so I guess that could be Sumner.

I hadn't ever seen a crescent and small star used on Typhoo products and wondered if it had any religious meaning - similar to the Quaker link with Cadburys?
 
In relation to the T.T.T, on the reverse of a First World War half-pound bag of Tea. It reads: Typhoo Tipps - Tea Table Talk. No. B 91
 
typhoo_packet_showing_crescent_seal.jpg
Looking at my copy of william's book, there is a picture of an early packet that shows the same mark as on the building. it seems to be put on as a "seal" of quality, to indicate that the packet contained genuine Typhoo Tipps. Apparently there was a lot imitation going on in the industry, including calling other products Tipps , when this was originally a miss-spelling of Tips
 
Extracted from Wikipedia.....

In 1870, William and his son John, founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Summer Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop.

Sumner set his own criteria for the new brand:
  • The name had to be distinctive and unlike others.
  • It had to be a name that would trip off the tongue.
  • It had to be one that would be protected by registration.
The name Typhoo comes from the Chinese word for "doctor" (traditional Chinese: 大夫, hanyu pinyin: dài fū).[1]

In 1911 John Sumners was living in Stoney Lane, Yardley.
 
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