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Great question.

Here’s what Lipton’s website says about their origins:

Sir Thomas Lipton was a Scottish-born entrepreneur and innovator who decided in 1880, at the age of 40, that he would make tea accessible to all at acceptable prices and with a guaranteed quality. Before Thomas Lipton, tea had been expensive. It was a beverage for the rich and variable in taste as a result of improper packaging and transportation. Thomas Lipton acquired tea estates in Ceylon (today Sri Lanka) and organized packaging and transportation at low cost to sell his teas ‘direct from the tea garden to the tea pot’. In 1893, he established the Thomas J Lipton Co., a tea packing company with its headquarters and factory in Hoboken, New Jersey.

LIPTON® teas were an immediate success in the US. Thomas Lipton was knighted by Queen Victoria, who made him Sir Thomas Lipton in 1898 at the age of forty-eight.

Thanks to Sir Thomas Lipton, LIPTON® is the world’s leading tea brand and present in more than 150 countries.

LIPTON®. The company that serves tea to the world.