Brew News - the Yorkshire Tea blog

200 tea lovers. Three hours. One train. The result was either the strangest event we’ve ever conceived, or the best idea we’ve ever had.

Either way, it was utterly lovely.

So last Wednesday, Yorkshire Tea commandeered the Orient Express. We invited 200 VIPs (or should that be “VITeas”?) including lots of customers, for a journey into the world of a proper brew.

That meant afternoon tea, tea-themed cocktails, music from the Yorkshire Tea band, a chance to meet our staff and quiz our tea experts, travelling in luxury all the way.

We still can’t quite believe it happened – but thanks to the camera skills of our guests and our own on-board photographer, we’ve got the pictures to prove it did.

Here’s a selection from the day (and you can take a look at a video here).

The golden ticket – admitting one to the Yorkshire Tea Train.

Yorkshire Tea’s Dom with Michael Vaughan.

Blogger Missie Cindz meets fire fighter Steve, who took a team to help out in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, aided by supplies of Yorkshire Tea (you can read about his adventures here).

The sign made it all feel slightly more real.

Louis Tomlinson taking a day out from One Direction’s busy schedule of world domination.

On board, and passengers enjoy a spot of entertainment from the Yorkshire Tea Band.

Proper brew fan Hazel tries on a new hat. Very fetching.

Giles and Kate, beautifully dressed for the occasion.

Yorkshire Tea drinker Sam tucks into afternoon tea.

Jake from Jake’s Bar and Still – creator of the fantastic Yorkshire Tea-based cocktails.

The obligatory arty shot – ain’t it lovely!

Back at the station, this is Chris from Leeds band Ellen and the Escapades – a Yorkshire Tea drinker and a train nut – with a copy of the Yorkshire Tea Times. Guests all featured in their own personalised front page, thanks to some whizzy technology.

The Yorkshire Tea Crew.

It’s an exclusive, once-in-a-lifetime celebration of Yorkshire Tea – and we want you to join us!

On Wednesday, April 24, we’re taking some lucky tea lovers on a magical journey through the world of Yorkshire Tea aboard the world famous Orient Express.

Departing from London Victoria at midday, we’ll travel in luxury, enjoying afternoon tea and tea-based cocktails and mingling with fellow lovers of a proper brew, before returning to the station at 3.30pm.

We have 10 pairs of tickets up for grabs – and we’re picking passengers this Thursday (April 11), so you’d better get cracking!

Here’s what you need to enter:

- You MUST be free on April 24 and able to make your own way to London Victoria before midday

- You and your guest must be over 18.

- Email competition@yorkshiretea.co.uk with the subject line “Train” and tell us in 30 words or less why you love Yorkshire Tea

- If you can, please tell us the name of your guest

A panel of judges made up of Yorkshire Tea staff will pick the 10 best entries. The closing date is midday on Thursday, April 11. You can read the full terms and conditions here.

Do you ever talk to your cup of tea?
No, of course not. That would be very strange.
But we know it’s tempting. When we’re sitting down with a brew, we often feel like throwing a few compliments its way.
“Thanks for being so delicious,” we might say. “God bless your rich, refreshing taste.”
See? Pretty strange.
Luckily, you can talk to your tea company. It’s like talking to your tea, with the distinct advantage of not making everyone around you look worried.
Here’s a selection of some of the things Yorkshire Tea fans have been saying to us lately.

Wheely pleased

This man is exhibiting clear symptoms of possessing large amounts of Yorkshire Tea. Notice the delighted face, the upright thumbs and the cheerful jumper. This is Mo, from the Bicycle Doctor in Manchester, a worker’s co-op bike shop which “runs on Yorkshire Tea power”. He’s a happy man.

Dane-tea

This picture of Yorkshire Gold in the wild was sent in by Ingrid from Denmark, who wrote: “My lovely sister made sure I have plenty of ‘the world’s best tea’ before going back to London.”
You have a great sister, Ingrid. And we also rather like your table.

Aus-tea-lia

That’s a really bad pun. But given that we were also considering “Oz-tea Osbourne” and “Stone Cold Steve Aus-tea”, you actually got off very lightly.
So, Yorkshire Tea arrived in Australian supermarkets this year. It’s both tremendously exciting and quite scary, and we’ve been helped through our trepidation by the kind efforts of local Yorkshire Tea fans sending us pictures of our pack sitting proudly on the shop shelves.
It’s a bit like when people borrow garden gnomes, take them on holiday and send photos back to the owners. Except our gnome’s not coming back. He’s emigrated, and he’s searching for thousands of new homes to live in.
Thanks to Gillian, we’ve seen ourselves in Griffith, New South Wales.
Thanks to Tom, we’ve spotted our pack in Harbour Town, Queensland.
Thanks to Karen and Jessica, we know how we look on the shelves in Salamander Bay, New South Wales (that’s the picture above).
And thanks to Matthew, we can tick a trip to Adelaide off our bucket list.

If you’d like to talk to Yorkshire Tea, we’d like to talk to you too. There are lots of ways to do it. You can send an email to hello@yorkshiretea.co.uk or find us on Twitter and Facebook.

When you’re creating a giant, two-dimensional cup of tea, you encounter the occasional conundrum.

For example – how do you make it steam?

The solution, excitingly, is “aeroplanes”. We wish that was the answer to more of life’s big questions.

Not any old aeroplanes, though. We’re talking about The Blades – a display team of former Red Arrows.

These air aces have had some odd assignments in their time, but our ad ranks pretty highly.

Here’s team leader (also known as Blade 1) Mark Cutmore: “The Yorkshire Tea ad was definitely one of the more unusual briefs that we’ve received but, as we’re the only display team that does what we do, we have been asked to do some quite strange things over the years.

“We were written into the storyline on Emmerdale a few years ago and we’ve also done a stunt for a lunch event where we flew 14 consecutive loops with a passenger in the front seat of one of our planes, holding a mug of tea.”

And the manoeuvre they pull off to get our giant brew steaming is actually just the first part of their signature move.

“The section that you see in the ad of the four aircraft in formation pulling up into the vertical is the beginning of our manoeuvre called ‘The Blades Hammerhead’ where we cut the speed of the aircraft and stall towards each other,” said Mark.

“It’s a really important one to us as it’s our trademark manoeuvre. As far as we’re aware we’re the only display team in the world that does this and, luckily, it was also the perfect manoeuvre to create the steam coming out of the teacup.”

In case you haven’t seen our ad yet, you can take a look at The Blades in action here. And you can find out more about them by visiting their website here.

A glockenspiel made from teaspoons?

Now, Marsden Silver Band probably had some idea of what they were getting into when they signed up to be The Yorkshire Tea Band for our new TV advert.

But we’re not sure if they expected to find themselves wearing mugs for hats, blowing teapots like cornets, lugging around a weighty drum made from a tea urn and playing a glockenspiel better suited to squeezing tea bags.

Helen Williams from the band said: “We had all been speculating on what our outfits would be after several phone calls from the production company asking for literally all our vital statistics!

“I’ll never forget the face of fellow band member Kathleen Coton as I stood in my full Yorkshire Tea Band regalia, complete with a huge mug on my head, as she walked in the room after me for her fitting!”

This would all have seemed rather unusual to the band’s original members, who formed it in 1889. That’s just three years after Yorkshire Tea’s maker, Taylors of Harrogate, started up.

Based in Huddersfield, it’s a championship section band with plenty of honours to its name (you can read about those here)

Naturally they also played the tune – a lively rendition of Everything Stops for Tea with an intentional dose of chaos and a tempo which keeps speeding up.

Helen said: “Taking part in at least four major brass band competitions annually and numerous concert performances means that the players in the band are used to the discipline involved.

“So when they were asked to make the recording of the ad music sound more chaotic and as if it were recorded outdoors it required them to let go of their usual high standards!”

You can read more about the experience from the band’s point of view on their website. And they won’t be hanging up their mug hats just yet.

As the Official Brew of England Cricket, we’ll be appearing at the Ashes tests this year to make sure the traditional tea break is a real celebration. And we couldn’t do that without The Yorkshire Tea Band!

Silence in the crowd. Emery steps up to the line. The spoon shakes in his hand. He takes aim, shoots, and a tea bag arcs through the air towards the bucket.

It lands clean. The crowd erupts. Two points up, Emery takes a bow, then retires for a brew.

Welcome to the sport of Tea Bag Tossing.

It’s the brainchild of Enigma Auto, a garage on the island of Jersey, and Yorkshire ex-pat Richard Emery and his colleagues have been playing it for two years.

And that picture above shows just one of the trophies annually presented to the winners.

Players stand at one end of the 21ft pitch, pick one of the two official spoons and launch the bag into the bucket at the opposite end.

They score two points if it lands inside, one point if it lands in after a deflection and half a point if it lands on the edge. If it goes in and knocks an edge bag in with it, that’s a huge two-and-a-half points.

Points are recorded throughout the year, with trophies presented at the staff Christmas dinner.

“Competition is now fierce and a two-pointer really makes your day,” says Richard.

“Yorkshire bags are far more consistent flyers. There would be a revolution if we ran out.”

It’s not in the Olympics yet, but it’s surely only a matter of time.

In the past, communication was hard.

If you wanted to send somebody a message, you had to write it out by hand, tie it to a pigeon and hope for the best.

How times have changed. These days, thanks to the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it has never been easier to send a silly photo of yourself to your favourite tea company.

Here’s a selection of some of the best things we’ve received over the last few weeks.

Lionel Richtea

Is it tea you’re looking for? This picture came from James whose mum bought the mug at a Lionel Richie concert.

“Best. Christmas. Ever.”

For many Yorkshire Tea fans, Christmas brought a bumper supply of their favourite tea bags. Here, Louise subtly captures the emotion of a person who has just found out they are a whole 480 brews away from having to go down the shops.

Minivan

What is this – a tea van for ants?!

That’s right, eagle-eyed types might have spotted that this isn’t a full sized vehicle. In fact, it’s the die-cast Corgi model of our trusty tea van Little Urn, enjoying a visit to Sydney Opera House. Thanks to Tim and Lucy for the picture.

Drinks cabinet

What’s in your cupboard? Bread? Pasta? Tinned food? If you answered yes to any of the these, then you’re doing it wrong. Take a look at this helpful instructional image from Aimee which depicts the correct use of a kitchen cabinet.

Lastly… don’t you think movies need more tea?

With the help of many of our friends on Twitter, we re-imagined some of Hollywood’s finest films. Here are ten of the best:

Assam Like it Hot
A Brewteaful Mind
A Mug’s Life
The Bourne Identeatea
Blend it Like Beckham
Sunset Brewlevard
The Ceylons of the Lambs
Oolong Rouge
The English Breakfast Club
Monty Python and the Earl Grey-il

If you’d like to share our love of tea, you can like Yorkshire Tea on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or send an email to hello@yorkshiretea.co.uk. It’s considerably cheaper than buying a pigeon.

Christmas is over – but that doesn’t mean we’ve stopped feeling the holiday spirit just yet.

In fact, as we pop the kettle on for one of the last few brews of 2012, we’ve found ourselves feeling rather humbled.

A little while ago, a London fire fighter named Steve asked us for some tea bags and a few other goodies.

He was heading to New York with seven colleagues to help out with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy – and it’s not the first time his group, Tunnel 2 Towers Run, has headed out to help the New York Fire Dept.

They joined local fire crews, police, the US Coast Guard and other aid-giving groups to help people hit by the hurricane – some of whom have no homes and no electricity.

The picture above shows the lads at Breezy Point, taking a quick break on the floor joists before laying a new floor – inspired by this famous shot.

“Thank you Yorkshire Tea,” wrote Steve, who is now back home. “You empowered us to bring people together for a well earned cuppa, which always gave us positive moments.”

We’re honoured to think we might have helped a little with such a noble mission.

You can find out more about Tunnel 2 Towers Run here.

We’re often surprised when we find out who likes Yorkshire Tea.

Of course, everyone loves a good brew, but we’re a family company.

So when somebody famous expresses a fondness for a cup of Yorkshire, we can find ourselves a little… starstruck.
Take Rufus Hound.

The comedian, actor and regular TV panellist was just down the road from our Harrogate HQ the other week, visiting Leeds with his National Theatre show, One Man, Two Guvnors.

After saying via Twitter, we learned he’s a fan. “I love youse guys,” he said.

One tweet led to another and, a couple of days later, he popped in for a cuppa and a slice of cake.

Rufus – and some of his fellow cast members – also took part in a special tea tasting session with our tea buyer Henry and got a glimpse behind the scenes on a factory tour.

And you know what? He’s a thoroughly lovely chap!

It backs up our theory that nice people like Yorkshire Tea. Even ones who leave you starstruck.

Meet Jayne, Debbie, Susan, Gerwyn, Anthony, Donna, Stephen, Katie, Paul, Helen, Pete and Sue.

They seriously love Yorkshire Gold. In fact, you could call them superfans.

We asked people to send us a video or picture showing their love for their favourite brew, and boy did they deliver.

There was everything from an intricately constructed samba tune using spoons, kettles and other tea-making noises, to a picture of the marriage between a tea-loving young lady and our 1886 founder Charles Edward Taylor. (See our previous blog for links and more info.)

He’s old enough to be her great-great-great-grandfather!

The prize was a VIP visit to our Harrogate HQ for a special Yorkshire Gold Masterclass. Like Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket, but for tea.

The winners and their friends – that’s them in the picture above – joined us on Tuesday, travelling from as far afield as London and Wales for a glimpse behind the scenes of their beloved cuppa.

That meant a spot of lunch followed by an in-depth tea tasting session with Henry, one of our tea buyers, and a guided tour of the Yorkshire Tea factory.

And what a lovely bunch they were! There’s clearly something about our tea which attracts the right sort. Meeting them was the highlight of our week, and we hope they enjoyed it just as much.

Yorkshire Tea – official brew of nice people. We should put that on the box…