Decoding The Entrance To Twinings: London’s Oldest Tea Shop

Wander along the bustling Strand and you would be forgiven for missing the tiny entrance to the Twinings shop at number 216. Perhaps you might be distracted by the huge, neo-Gothic Royal Courts of Justice opposite…

The Twinings teashop is one of London’s oldest shops, certainly its oldest teashop and a brilliant slice of London history. The eccentric entrance onto the Strand in many ways tells the story of the shop.

Thomas Twining And Tea

Thomas Twining was born in Gloucestershire and moved with his family to London when he was 9. He became a weaver’s apprentice before going onto work for the East India Company.

Being a budding entrepreneur, in 1706 Thomas purchased Tom’s Coffeehouse on the Strand and started to sell tea alongside the coffee. Coffeehouses were very popular in London at this time and it wasn’t unheard of for them to serve tea as well, but Thomas focussed his business increasingly on the tea element.

One of Thomas’ most successful innovations was to start selling dry tea, to be sold and taken away. This allowed wealthy women to wait outside the coffeehouse (exclusively male environments), whilst their footman ran in to fetch the dry tea; ready to brew and consume in their home.

Tea was first introduced to the British aristocracy by Charles II’s Portuguese wife: Catherine of Braganza in the 1660s and it started off largely as an upper class product.

The medicinal benefits of tea were touted as a sales technique. The supposed benefits included making ‘the body active and lusty’ and curative properties against, amongst other ailments: indigestion, chronic fear and grief.

Twining’s Success

Despite extortionately high taxes on tea for most of the 1700s, the shop was a roaring success. He ended up buying the 3 properties around the coffeehouse in 1717, creating the complex there today.

The Twining family were instrumental in lobbying for lower taxes on tea and in 1784 the Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger reduced taxation on tea from 119% to 12.5%. This secured it as Britain’s national drink and cemented it at the heart of British culture.

Today over 100 million cups are drunk everyday in Britain.

Twinings still operates from the same site today and it acts as the company’s flagship store.

The Entrance Design

Now let’s take a closer look at the unusual entranceway.

Constructed in 1787, the neo-classical design takes inspiration from Ancient Greece and Rome.

The Golden Lion

When Thomas first set up his business, street numbering was not yet widespread. Businesses would therefore distinguish themselves by the hanging sign over their entrance. Twinings had the sign of a golden lion and therefore was known as ‘the Golden Lyon’ and its address ‘under the golden lion on the Strand’.

The gold lion was therefore incorporated into the design. The fact the lion is lying down is seen as a sign of respect to the founder; Thomas Twining.

The Chinese Figures

The two Chinese figures are there to represent the trade with China. Tea had been drunk in China for thousands of years prior to it reaching the shores of Europe.

It started to be imported into Europe in the early 1600s and Britain in around the 1660s. The vast majority of tea exported to Europe was grown in China right up until the mid 19th century and imported into Britain by the East India Company.

The tea trade grew to be so important to the British people and the Empire that Britain went to war with China over it twice in the 1840s and 1850s. The two wars were called the ‘opium wars’, due to the fact that the East India Company had been illegally selling opium to Chinese traders in exchange for tea. The wars resulted in British victories, primarily due to a superior navy.

The opium wars are still seen today as a huge founding moment in Chinese nationalism.

Following the wars, more Chinese ports were opened for trading and this served to increase the tea trade even more.

The fashion in Britain was to drink the freshest new crop, leading to ‘tea races’. Ships called clippers were built for speed and to race to be the first ship into London with a new batch of tea. The Cutty Sark, in Greenwich, is the most well known of these.

By the late 1800s China was producing 250,000 tonnes of tea with most of that exported to Britain and the rest of Europe.

Twinings Logo

In the middle of the entrance you can see the Twinings logo. It was created along with the entrance in 1787, making it the oldest continuously used logo in the world.

The Royal Warrant

Above the logo you will see the royal warrant. Queen Victoria first gave Twinings its first royal warrant in 1837 and made Twinings the supplier of tea to the royal family. It has been renewed by every monarch since.

Royal warrants have been in place since the 15th century but warrant granting increasing rapidly in the reign of Queen Victoria who gave out over 2000 royal warrants. Today around 850 companies/individuals hold royal warrants.

The Shop And Museum

If you go inside the shop you can sample all sorts of different types of tea for free.

They also have a small museum section to learn about the history of tea and Twinings.

Find out more about visiting here.

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