My Mother Loved Tea

In My Mother Loved Tea, David Bigelow, son of Ruth Bigelow, shares how his mother changed America’s tea culture in the 1940s from her tiny New York City kitchen. He begins by saying, “Truth was that in 1945, the tea section of the typical grocery store contained only black tea. It came in large boxes with lots of tea bags and lots of brand names, but however you sliced and diced it, it was all the same…black tea. Believe it or not, there was no such thing as a specialty tea to be found and in Ruth Bigelow’s mind, that was wrong. She felt drinkers deserved more.”

Ruth started by experimenting with a tea recipe popular in the American South during Colonial days. She recreated the aromatic blend and offered samples to friends who coined it “Constant Comment,” for all the praise it received (see a recipe for Constant Comment Holiday Punch below). Soon after, it was on the shelves of Bloomingdales and featured in the New York Herald Tribune.

The story follows the Bigelows from their first tiny office space in Chinatown, where they packaged Asian seasonings for sale to businesses in the neighborhood, to chronicling the successes and failures of their tea business. Filled with historic photos of their first tea bag machines to those showing exactly how they make their tea, the book is a wonderful exploration for any tea lover or those interested in how the specialty food industry became what it is today.

Today, Bigelow Teas owns what is believed to be the only tea plantation in North America, the Charleston Tea Plantation on Wadmalaw Island, S.C., which is open to visitors who want to learn more about tea. Constant Comment is still a best seller for the company and is available for $3/box of 20 teabags; or $17.75 per case of 6 boxes at bigelowtea.com.