R.C. Bigelow, Inc. (also known as the Bigelow Tea Company) is an American manufacturer of dried

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...

s based in

Fairfield, Connecticut Fairfield is a New England town, town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It borders the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, Bridgeport and towns of Trumbull, Connecticut, Trumbull, Easton, Connecticut, Easton, Weston, Connecticut, W ...

. It was founded by Ruth C. Bigelow in 1945, based on a recipe she marketed as "Constant Comment" tea. The company markets over 50 varieties of tea, including

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

and

herbal A herbal is a book containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually with information on their medicinal, Herbal tonic, tonic, culinary, toxic, hallucinatory, aromatic, or Magic (paranormal), magical powers, and the legends associated wi ...

, all of which are blended in Fairfield. The company has other plants in

Boise, Idaho Boise ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Idaho, most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, there were 235,685 people residing in the city. Loca ...

, and

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville is the List of cities in Kentucky, most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, and the list of United States cities by population, 27th-most-populous city ...

. Their Charleston Tea Garden in

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

is the only tea garden in America, but it does not produce the company's teas. Still a 100% family-owned business,"Hoovers article on R.C. Bigelow, Inc."
Accessed in 2010. It lists David Bigelow and Eunice Bigelow as Co-Chairmen and Co-CEOs, and Cynthia Bigelow as President. Bigelow employs 350 people and had annual sales in 2020 of approximately US$188.9 million.

Constant Comment

Constant Comment remains today one of Bigelow's most popular products. It is a

black tea Black tea (also literally translated as red tea from various East Asian languages) is a type of tea that is more tea processing, oxidized than oolong, yellow tea, yellow, white tea, white, and green tea, green teas. Black tea is generally st ...

flavored with

orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower ** Orange juice *Orange (colour), the color of an orange fruit, occurs between red and yellow in the vi ...

rinds and sweet spices. The recipe was developed by interior designer Ruth Bigelow in 1945, from an old colonial tea recipe for making orange and spice flavored tea in stone containers. In 1945, ''The New York Times'' food writer Jane Holt wrote about the newly introduced tea, calling it "unusual", "delicious", "concentrated", and "economical": A 1945 article by noted food writer Clementine Paddleford tells this story about the origin of the name: Sales grew slowly but steadily, taking off in the 1970s when Bigelow began packing their teabags in folding

cardboard Cardboard is a generic term for heavy paper-based products. Their construction can range from a thick paper known as paperboard to corrugated fiberboard, made of multiple plies of material. Natural cardboards can range from grey to light brown ...

boxes instead of tins. According to singer-songwriter

Leonard Cohen Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian songwriter, singer, poet, and novelist. Themes commonly explored throughout his work include faith and mortality, isolation and depression, betrayal and redemption, soc ...

, the famous lines, "and she feeds you tea and oranges / that come all the way from China", from his first hit song " Suzanne", refer to Constant Comment tea. The tea also gets a mention in the 1977 children's novella 'Mildred Murphy, how does your Garden Grow?' by Phyllis Green in which " ildred'sloneliness disappears when hebefriends a secretive woman living in a condemned garage" who is fond of the tea. In 2016, CEO Cindi Bigelow said of the recipe for Constant Comment: "the only two people who know the formula are my parents uth Bigelow's son David, Jr. and his wife and that the recipe remains unchanged from the original since it was first developed.

References

External links

*{{Official, www.bigelowtea.com Companies based in Fairfield County, Connecticut Tea brands in the United States Fairfield, Connecticut Tea companies of the United States Certified B Corporations in the Food & Beverage Industry Family-owned companies of the United States 1945 establishments in Connecticut Food and drink companies established in 1945

Constant Comment

See also

References

External links