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By 1880, tea was the thirdlargest
imported commodity
in New Zealand (behind
drapery goods and sugar),
with the country spending
more on the beverage
annually than it did on
hardware and ironmongery.
Tea, Anyone?
Tea is not the sort of product usually associated with
a hardware company, but in the nineteenth century
Briscoes was New Zealand’s largest importer of tea.
It was a lucrative commodity: for New Zealanders,
where the greatest proportion of the European
population was of British extraction, the afternoon
‘cuppa’ was a staple beverage—everyone had one
daily, and usually several.
By 1880, tea was the third-largest imported
commodity in New Zealand (behind drapery goods
and sugar), with the country spending more on
the beverage annually than it did on hardware and
ironmongery. Even by 1900, New Zealand had the
highest tea consumption per head of population
in the world—nine pounds of tea for every man,
woman, and child. As an importer with connections
in the West Indies, Briscoes leveraged its network not
only to supply tea to thirsty New Zealanders, but also
to produce its own house blends: Gold and Silver
Crest, the Avondale Blend of pure Ceylon tea, and
Surisanda.
By 1898, the Briscoes Crest Blend was the most
popular brand of tea on sale in the New Zealand
market. In part, Briscoes attributed their success in
the tea market to a strategic acquisition. An English
tea expert, trained in Mincing Lane, London (the
epicentre of tea and spice traders for the world trade
in tea as a commodity), had been sent to Dunedin to
run the New Zealand tea department and ensure that
only the best blends were sold. It was a combination
of ‘purity, strength, and economy’, said Briscoes, that
made its tea business so good—before eventually
exiting the trade in 1902, selling its tea department to
a firm in Christchurch.