Punjana is a brand of tea produced by the

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

-based tea company Thompson's Tea. Thompson's Tea was founded in 1896 when Robert S. Thompson was made partner of McArthur and Willis. Thompson's Punjana has since become the best-selling tea in Northern Ireland and one of the most popular brands in Scotland. Thompson's source the leaves for their tea from

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

, Northeast India and from the slopes of

Mount Kenya Mount Kenya (Meru people, Meru: ''Kĩrĩmaara,'' Kikuyu people, Kikuyu: ''Kĩrĩnyaga'', Kamba language, Kamba: ''Ki nyaa'', Embu language, Embu: ''Kĩ nyaga'') is an extinct volcano in Kenya and the Highest mountain peaks of Africa, second-highe ...

History

In the late 19th century, Robert S. Thompson trained in the art of

tea tasting Tea tasting is the process in which a trained taster determines the quality of a particular tea. Due to climatic conditions, topography, manufacturing process, and different cultivars of the ''Camellia sinensis'' plant (tea), the final product ...

. Soon after joining the tea industry in 1887, he was made a partner at McArthur and Willis in 1896. Thompson subsequently led the company for 51 years, and the association of the company with the Thompson family was only strengthened when, in the post-war years, James and Tony Thompson also became partners. It was the introduction of the second generation of the Thompson family to the tea industry that brought with it the birth of the Punjana brand in the early 1950s. The name Punjana, was dreamed up by second generation James Thompson and his wife, Lillias, the inspiration coming from an inscription of the word "

Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...

" etched on the famous Gillespie statue in

Comber Comber ( , , locally ) is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies south of Newtownards, at the northern end of Strangford Lough. It is situated in the townland of Town Parks, the civil parish of Comber and the historic barony of Cas ...

Trivia

* In 2007, 59,500 cups of Punjana tea were consumed every hour of the day, 365 days a year.Punjana bag £2.5m packaging investment

References

Brands of Northern Ireland Tea brands Tea companies of the United Kingdom {{tea-stub