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This was supposed to go on the old DC Boards a few days before they shut down, but I got bored with writing it.


GREAT LAST TEAS

FAREWELL BREAKFAST TEA

Russell's Breakfast Tea first appeared on supermarket shelves in 1997. After an initial 6 month trial period in the north of England, distribution spread across the rest of the country. This strongly flavoured blend has a very distinct, almost 'leafy' aftertaste. In a recent test, in a popular food magazine, the tea divided opinion, one of the participants describing it as "like having a compost heap in [her] mouth."

Recent converts to the tea, or those who have seen the recent billboard advertisement campaign, which recommends drinking it cold, may be unaware that the beverage has a longer and darker history, stretching back to the beginning of the last century.

Russell's Farewell Breakfast tea was first created by Russell's & Sons Teas Ltd, in 1914. It was, in fact, a blend of three teas that the company were already producing, supplemented with wild herbs harvested from the fields around the factory. Initially these were picked by children from the nearby Sadler's Primary School and later by members of the local community.

In a document dating from 1915, and now on display at the Docklands Warehouse Museum on the Isle of Dogs, these herbs are listed as:

Sweet Parsley

Stepney Ginger

Apple Leaf

Ground Cokeberry (This, along with the parsley, is probably responsible for the tea's tart/leafy aftertaste).

The tea had been developed in a hurry, following a request by the English government, to food manufacturers, to provide the troops with large quantities of basic foodstuffs in the run up to the First World War. Rather than foist a low quality tea onto the British army, the patriotic John Russell elected to a manufacture a new blend with "sufficient enough character to be drunk without milk or sugar."

Although the blend was made using teas already in production by the Russell's factory, it had been very carefully put together by his wife and daughters (the sons in the 'Russells & Sons' business. John Russell had no male children) who spent weeks mixing different quantities of tea leaves and herbs in an effort to produce a blend that in Russell's words "would reflect the undaunting character of the English regiments" and "will carry the memory of England to soldiers stationed in far off places, so that they will remember what it is they are fighting for."

A pouch of farewell Breakfast tea was, in theory at least, delivered to the house of each and every serviceman before they left to do their duty on the continent. As well as the tea, the pouch also contained short rations of butter and jam and small measures of salt, flour and sugar, that formed the basic ingredients of Farewell Breakfast Scones, which could be made using the accompanying recipe card.

The label on the pouch featured a line drawing in dark brown ink of an elderly couple standing proudly in the doorway of a quaint English cottage, waving to their son as he strolled down the garden path in his army uniform. The address of the serviceman was stamped in a blank space along the bottom.

Unfortunately the glue that bonded the labels to the pouches was of poor quality. Many came unstuck during transit and blew around the streets for weeks. As a result many soldiers never received their small ration of tea that was to make up their last meal in this country. Meanwhile, undelivered stocks piled up in local post offices where they became the targets of mice and ants.

As the war progressed, satirical cartoons of the label began to appear, featuring the same elderly couple standing in the doorway of their cottage. On this occasion the woman was weeping into her hands. Her husband, stoically biting his lip as he comforted her, clutched a small piece of paper informing them of their son's death. In the place of the serviceman, a postman strolled down the path on his way to deliver more messages of bereavement.

The fact that Farewell Breakfast Tea was drunk by troops at the front line, most notably before the Battle of the Somme, was not lost on a generation of English romantics. After the war, Farewell Breakfast Tea, became associated with suicides and was frequently used to wash down does of poison or sleeping pills. At one tea shop, in central London, a policeman, in plain clothes, was placed on a permanent watch, to identify drinkers of Farewell Breakfast Tea and alert their colleagues to any suicide risks, so that they could be prevented from throwing themselves off the nearby Waterloo Bridge.

Most notable among these deaths was the actor Anthony Carr, who frequented the London stage during the early 1960s, usually playing Shakespearean roles. Carr brewed a pot of the Farewell breakfast Tea before hanging himself from the rafters of his London flat. He had been due to appear in court the following week on indecency charges, relating to his relationship with a 16 year old boy (The artist, Stephan Hope, who was murdered on Hampstead Heath in 1983).

As he jerked on the end of the rope, he kicked the teapot off the nearby table knocking the lid off and allowing the wet tea leaves to ooze over the carpet. The tea stain remains to this day; Although the current residents of the property have redecorated the room, they keep the old carpet in the loft, along with some of the period furniture, and lay it down once a year, on Open London weekend, in which tenants of listed properties around the capital open their doors to the general public.

In 1993 Russell's Tea Ltd was absorbed by the Kenton Foods conglomerate and Farewell Breakfast Tea was withdrawn from sale. It's removal from the shelves was probably more to do with corporate restructuring within the company, than any acknowledgement of the blend's morbid image.

The tea was re-launched quietly under it's new shortened moniker a few years later. In March 2004 the Financial Times reported that, as of 2005, Russell's will cease to trade under their own name and will be absorbed into Kenton Foods brand.

Pouches of Farewell Breakfast tea along with recipe cards for Farewell Breakfast Scones are still occasionally found among soldier's things.