I got his tin from my grandmother when I was a little girl. It was old already then with dents and scratches, but I loved my little tin. I used to collect glossy pictures, and the finest ones ended in this tin. I would not be surprised if this tin is 100 years old, or even more. Since I was going to post this photo, I searched in Google for this special brand of tea. I found the story, but I also found out that tins are very popular collectors items and they are worth a little fortune. Looking scruffy does not seem to matter. I would of course never sell it. It is still very dear to me, and I keep it on a shelf in my kitchen together with all the other tins I have collected over the years.


The rich history of Mazawattee: Alan Davies illustrates the fine history of a great brand that faded into oblivion.
The Hindi word for luscious is "mazathe". The Ceylonese word for garden is "wattee". From the two words, the four sons of John Boon Densham registered, in 1887, the brand name Mazawattee Tea. For the next 50 years or more this brand was to be one of the leaders in the tea industry.
Earlier, the firm's origins date to somewhere prior to 1865. At this time tea was heavily taxed in the U.K. and it is from "The Grocer," who published weekly "duty paid" lists that Lees & Densham, the forerunner of Mazawattee, can be found. The firm ranked number 39 on the list of 60 different companies paying duty for that week. They ranked just below today's well-known names of Tedey and Ridgeway. The top name on the list was Peek Bros. who paid duty that week on 95,000 lbs of tea.
Founder John Boon Densham was originally a chemist and druggist in Plymouth. At this time it was common for tea to be sold in chemist's shops, loose, mixed in the store and blended to the customers' personal preference. The tea was exclusively from China and India.
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