The only beverage consumed more than water is tea. While people consume about 100 million cups of tea per day across the pond in the United Kingdom, Americans still drink a whole lot of tea.
On an average day, more than half of Americans have at least one tea beverage. Unlike our British friends, Americans mostly consume iced teas.
Typically, we would rank these lists by annual revenue. All of the companies on this list put up impressive numbers and are the largest companies in the US based on revenue alone.
But, when discussing brands, brand recognition is sometimes the more important metric. So, we are also ranking these in terms of Instagram followers.
10 Largest Tea Brands in the United States
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Lipton. United Kingdom
Parent Company: Unilever PepsiCo
Annual Revenue 2020: $17.36 billion
Current CEO: Alan Jope
Followers on Instagram: 86.6kThis British tea company was founded in 1890 by Sir Thomas Lipton. What began as a grocery store chain in Glasgow grew into the largest tea company in the world.
At the time of its founding, tea was a luxury, a very expensive one. Sir Thomas wanted to lower costs and make tea available to everyone. So, he opened a tea packing plant in Hoboken, New Jersey, which helped lower packing and shipping costs.
Now available in more than 100 countries, Lipton was one of the first to sell tea in teabags. They were also one of the first to print the brewing instructions on the teabag tags. Once the company was sold to Argyll Foods, they began exclusively selling tea.
The company is currently owned by Unilever after a series of purchases completed in 1972. In the United States, Lipton is owned as a joint venture with PepsiCo. They began working together in the early 90s and continue to have a mutually beneficial relationship to this day.
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Twining. Hampshire, United Kingdom; New Jersey, United States
Parent Company: Associated British Foods
Annual Revenue 2020: $4 billion
Current CEO: Gavin Vandeligt (US)
Followers on Instagram: 59kTwinings Tea company was founded by Thomas Twining in 1706 when he purchased Tom’s Coffee House in London. He took advantage of the popularity of coffee houses of the time and introduced his beloved beverage, tea.
Tea was quickly becoming fashionable among the upper class and was considered a luxury item due to the cost. In 1707, just a year after opening, he began to focus his attention on tea sales.
Twining acquired several adjacent homes on Strand converting the space to a tea shop in 1717. This Twinings tea shop, 216 Strand, still exists today; it celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2017.
Thomas’ son Daniel Twining took over the company in 1741. It was not long after that the company began to export teas to other countries. The company continued to grow and gain traction. In 1837, Queen Victoria made Twinings the first Royal Warrant holder for tea, an honor they still hold today.
Though the Twining family is still involved, the company was acquired by Associated British Foods in 1964.
Something interesting, they have the world’s oldest logo in continuous use, having designed it in 1787.
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Celestial Seasonings. Boulder, Colorado, United States
Parent Company: The Hain Celestial Group
Annual Revenue 2020: $2 billion
Current CEO: Mark Schiller
Followers on Instagram: 39.8kCelestial Seasonings is one of the newer companies on this list. Founded in 1969 by Mo Siegal, he handpicked herbs in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. He began with Mo’s 36 Herb Tea which was sold exclusively at a Boulder, Colorado health food store in 1970.
In 1972, two of their flagship blends, Red Zinger® and Sleepytime®, were introduced. Sleepytime is one of the best-selling specialty blends of all time. The company continued to grow, introducing more tea varieties and spreading internationally in 1977. Today, they have over 105 varieties of tea and sell all over the world.
In 1984, the company was purchased by Kraft, Inc. In 1989, Celestial Seasonings and Vestar Capital Partners bought it back after Kraft announced they were selling to Lipton. In 2000, they merged with The Hain Food Group to become The Hain Celestial Group.
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Yorkshire. Harrogate, United Kingdom
Parent Company: Bettys Taylors Group
Annual Revenue 2020: $240 million
Current CEO: Lesley Wild
Followers on Instagram: 66.1kOne of the older companies on our list, Yorkshire Tea, was started in 1886. Charles Edward Taylor founded “C.E. Taylor Co.,” a tea and coffee merchant company located in England.
The company name was later shortened to simply Taylors, with no apostrophe. They were known for their quality and won a gold model at the London Grocery Exhibition in 1896.
The company was purchased by “Bettys Tea Rooms” in 1962 and renamed Taylors of Harrogate. The merger of the two companies formed the Bettys and Taylors Group. This family-owned conglomerate currently owns three brands: Bettys, Taylors of Harrogate, and Yorkshire Tea.
Yorkshire Tea itself was launched in 1977. Because of Taylors’ way of blending the tea to suit the water it’s steeped in, Yorkshire Tea was originally only intended for Yorkshire. But, it quickly spread countrywide and eventually worldwide. It is currently exported to over 20 countries and holds a Royal Warrant for The Prince of Wales.
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Dilmah. Peliyagoda, Sri Lanka
Parent Company: N/A; Family-Owned
Annual Revenue 2020: $158 million
Current CEO: Dilhan C. Fernando
Followers on Instagram: 14.2kThis Sri Lankan tea company was founded in 1988 by Merrill J. Fernando. The company’s name is derived from the combination of Merrill’s two sons’ names, Dilhan and Malik.
Merrill founded the company with a single-origin tea concept, preferring to produce unblended tea that is “picked, perfected, and packed” at its origin. They refer to their tea as “garden fresh.”
Currently sold in over 100 countries, Merrill built a multimillion-dollar company from the ground up. They focus on ethically produced products, care for the environment, and their MJF Charitable Foundation.
Merrill stepped down from his position as CEO in 2019. Merrill’s son Dilhan took over as head of the company upon his retirement.
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Teavana. Seattle, Washington, United States
Parent Company: Starbucks
Annual Revenue 2020: $100-$200 million
Current CEO: Andy Mack
Followers on Instagram: 135kOne of the younger companies on our list, Teavana, was founded in 1997 by Andrew T. Mack. It began with their Phipps Plaza teahouse in Atlanta, Georgia.
Teavana was known for its “tea bar” style locations, which offered a variety of teas to be brewed on demand.
Starbucks acquired the company in 2012, though shareholders did attempt to fight this acquisition. The majority of the Teavana “tea bar” stores have been closed, but Starbucks continues to produce and sell Teavana products through supermarkets and Starbucks locations.
Starbucks previously sold Tazo products through their stores but opted to sell the Tazo brand to Unilever in 2018 and focus their attention on Teavana. Tazo has since been divested from Unilever.
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Tetley USA. London, England
Parent Company: The Tetley Group (US); Tata Tea
Annual Revenue 2020: $135 million
Current CEO: Sunil D’Souza
Followers on Instagram: 7kTetley Tea began as tea merchants “Joseph Tetley Co.” in 1837. Founded in Yorkshire, England, by brothers Joseph and Edward Tetley. They relocated their company to London about twenty years after its founding when they partnered with Joseph Ackland to create “Joseph Tetley Company Wholesale Tea Dealers.”
They claim to be the first to sell tea bags in the United Kingdom, beginning this practice in 1953. The company became The Tetley Group in 1995. It was then acquired by Tata Consumer Products, or The Tata Group, an Indian business conglomerate, in 2000.
Tata is the second-largest manufacturer of teas in the world, after Unilever, which owns at least two of the brands on this list.
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Bigelow Tea. Fairfield, Connecticut, United States
Parent Company: N/A; Family-Owned
Annual Revenue 2020: $79 million
Current CEO: Cindi Bigelow
Followers on Instagram: 30.1kUnlike many of the other companies on this list, Bigelow is a family-owned company. Ruth Campbell Bigelow founded the company in 1945 with one tea variety: Constant Comment.
Formulated in her New York City brownstone, Ruth named her tea after the constant comments of praise she received for her specialty brew — the first in the United States. Today, Bigelow has over 140 tea varieties. Though Constant Comment, whose original recipe is still used, is still a favorite.
When the second generation, David and Eunice Bigelow, took over, they expanded the company to what it is today. It was David and Eunice who partnered with grocery stores in the 1970s to bring their tea to the mass market. Though they still serve as co-chairmen, the company has been passed on to the third generation of Bigelow.
Cindi took over in 2005 after 20 years working for the company in different capacities. She has pushed for a larger social media presence and is working hard to achieve better brand recognition.
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Yogi. Hamburg Germany; Oregon United States
Parent Company: East West Tea Company, LLC
Annual Revenue 2020: $58 million
Current CEO: Giancarlo Marcaccini
Followers on Instagram: 198kHarbhajan Singh Khalsa, known as Yogi Bhajan, was a spiritual teacher and Kundalini yoga instructor. He made a habit of offering a specially blended tea that he prepared himself to students after his yoga classes in the 1960s. Students began to affectionately refer to it as “yogi tea.” This original blend is known as Yogi Tea Classic today.
It wasn’t until 1984 that Yogi Bhajan founded the Yogi Tea company. Inspired by an ancient holistic healing philosophy originating over 3,000 years ago in India, the original blend contained five spices from traditional Ayurvedic medicine. Today, Yogi Tea has over 40 different tea blends, though they still stick strongly to their Ayurveda philosophy.
The majority of their tea blends are USDA Certified Organic, and the company strongly believes in its commitment to sustainability.
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Argo International. Chicago, Illinois, United States
Parent Company: Golden Fleece beverages, Inc.
Annual Revenue 2020: $43 million
Current CEO: Arsen Avakian
Followers on Instagram: 7kOur youngest tea brand on the list, Argo, was founded in 2003 by Arsen Avakian, Simon Simonian, and Daniel Lindwasser. Avakian and Simonian are childhood friends from Armenia.
Argo was originally founded as a chain of tea cafes in and around Chicago. By 2010, they expanded to New York City, opening several locations in high-traffic areas. By 2011, they had 26 locations and were distributing their products through grocery stores across the county. The company began spreading internationally in 2013.
Purchased by Golden Fleece Beverages, Inc. in 2020, the company is still operating under the Argo name.
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Author
Samantha is a lifelong writer who has been writing professionally for the last six years. After graduating with honors from Greensboro College with a degree in English & Communications, she went on to find work as an in-house copywriter for several companies including Costume Supercenter, and Blueprint Education.
