Melinda wrote:
Can anyone tell me what the difference in packaging is between Twinings
British and Twinings American? Someone said they were able to buy the
British type at their store, I'd like to know what I'm looking for should I
come across it and decide to try it.

http://www.twinings.co.uk/home_flash.asp
http://www.twinings.com/en_us/index.asp

The American boxes seem to be those familiar solid-color, traditional
ones.

The British boxes are much more modern looking, with photos of pretty
people and bold graphical elements. They'd actually fit in rather well
on American shelves, but then we wouldn't get the "Britishness", which,
I think, is at least 80% of its selling points to Americans. The
British site wouldn't have a picture of a guy in a powdered wig
anywhere on it.

And the product lines are different. The American line has more
varieties. From what I saw, the British line is more limited, with
just an "Everyday tea", a "1706", and an "African" blend, plus a number
of greens and tisanes.

Looks like their marketing department treats the two sides of the
Atlantic as totally separate marketing paradigms.

Just for a laugh, I looked through the other countries' websites (see
www.twinings.com for the selector box):

Australia: still different packaging graphics, but the site is still
mostly following the "look how traditional and British we are". Has
most if not all of the American-market products.

Russia: looks like the American tins, though I don't doubt they're
printed in Cyrillic; the powdered wig is gone, but there's an old
delivery truck. Looks like similar product to the other non-British
sites.

International: pretty much indistinguishable from the American
version, save the inclusion of a come-on for something called the
"two-day detox plan" which would probably send the FDA into fits of
advertising regulationism (and rightly so).

Wait. The "two-day detox plan" is in the American site, too, but buried
a bit. Hmm. Looks like it lacks protein. Some sort of vegetarian
hoodoo. Meat is good for you; stop eating crappy, fatty meat like
McDonald's (Burger King etc.) and you'll feel a lot better.

--Blair