Bigelow family combines tea production with tourism

R.C. Bigelow is one of those great tea companies that sounds so very British. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. Bigelow is all-American, through and through.

The company was formed in 1945 by Ruth Campbell Bigelow in the kitchen of her brownstone apartment in New York City. 

Prior to the Great Depression, Ruth Bigelow was an interior designer and decorator, and she and her husband, David Bigelow Sr., made it through tough economic times by selling Chinese spices. 

As an extension of that business, she thought she could produce a better blend of tea in 1945 by mixing black tea from China with orange rind and sweet spices.

 

Ruth Bigelow shared her tea with friends and received many comments – in fact, “constant comments.” Her new brew took the name “Constant Comments,” and the Bigelow tea company was born.

 

She and David moved the business to a small factory in Norwalk, Ct., in 1950. Their son, David Bigelow Jr. and his wife, Eunice, joined the family business after their marriage in 1959. The company outgrew the Norwalk facility, and headquarters was moved to its current site in Fairfield, Ct., in 1993. 

The second generation of Bigelow leadership passed the torch to their younger daughter, Cindi Bigelow, who became president and CEO of Bigelow in 2005. Cindi is a graduate of Boston College and earned her MBA from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Cindi Bigelow was the architect of a $2 million plant upgrade in 2022. The Fairfield location has the capacity to produce more than 750 million tea bags a year.

 

Industry analysts say Bigelow brands combine to rank among the top-selling tea products in the U.S. market. Bigelow’s estimated annual sales are $257.8 million.

 

The Bigelow family is also in the agri-tourism business, as owner of Charleston (S.C.) Tea Garden, a 127-acre property on Wadmalaw Island, below Charleston. The Bigelow family bought the operation in 2003.

 

More than 80,000 people visit each year to learn more about the growing of tea and the manufacturing process. Admission is free, but there is a small fee to take the trolley tour to view the entire operation.

 

The former owner, William Barclay Hall, a third-generation tea taster who was trained in London, agreed to stay on to work the land, coaxing the South Carolina tea bushes into yielding “a bright, light flavorful blend perfect for iced tea,” wrote journalist Donovan Webster. 

Bigelow selected “American Classic” as the label for the first tea ever to be made with 100% tea grown in America. Many new teas have been added under the Charleston Tea Garden brand. The gift shop contains a tea bar for tasting an assortment of teas.

 

Hall told Webster that the tea bushes are part of a crop planted in Summerville, S.C., in 1888 by Dr. Charles U. Shepard Jr., who was a chemistry professor at the Medical College of South Carolina in Charleston.

Dr. Shepard’s tea bushes were later transplanted to the tea garden on Wadmalaw Island, “meaning each cup of tea is a taste of history,” Hall said.

“Tea is the greatest crop in the world,” Hall said. “You don’t have to till it, so you’re not creating erosion. The plants live forever, and you can put 5,200 of them on just one acre. People all over the world start and end their day with a cup of tea. They take comfort from a cup of tea.”

 

“If every crop on Earth were as good as tea, the world would be a far better place,” Hall opined.