One of the UK’s biggest tea brands has denied that a press furore over one of its blends was a deliberate marketing ploy to gain attention.

Several of the daily press enthusiastically jumped aboard the bandwagon of a silly-season story concerning Twinings’  Earl Grey blend. The producer relaunched the blend with the addition of a touch of lemon and a slight increase in the amount of bergamot, the citrus oil which gives Earl Grey its distinctive taste.

To the delight of the daily press, some tea-drinkers were reported to be ‘rising in revolt’, and had even created a Facebook campaign, demanding: ‘bring back the original Twinings Earl Grey tea.’  According to one report, a customer of thirty year’s drinking went so far as to suggest: ‘I’d rather drink PG Tips.’

In response, it was reported, Twinings offered various incentives for complaining drinkers to try ‘the ten day challenge’, to see if the new taste grows on them, and even the offer of a year’s supply of the old Earl Grey.

Could this, asked one paper, be ‘an internet ruse to raise sales of the tea bags’? There is certainly something strange about the situation – because the recipe change was made a clear four months before the daily press took it up as a new campaign.

“Any complaints which were made, were made directly after the launch in April,” says a company spokesman. “They were all dealt with then. It was only in August that the press took it up.”

Could it, we enquired, be a parallel to the notorious Salad Cream story of ten years ago, in which Heinz allegedly ‘leaked’ a rumour about the discontinuation of a familiar product, purely to spark new interest in it?

“No!” responded the Twinings spokesman. “This has not been a deliberate ploy to draw attention. We could have done without all the press coverage.”

Unlike the infamous Coca-Cola situation, in which a recipe change drew so many protests that the brand reverted to its original formula, Twinings does not propose to reconsider its move to a ‘new’ Earl Grey tea.

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