Ruth Campbell Bigelow, started the company in her kitchen when her husband, David Bigelow lost his publishing job and the interior design business she ran was decimated by the Depression.
The first specialty tea in the USA, Constant Comment is a black tea flavored with orange rinds and sweet spices. The first production facility was in the Bigelow’s New York brownstone apartment.
After Bigelow Tea was formed, David oversaw all the finances, ensuring that he and Ruth watched their pennies so that the fledgling business could survive.
With their growing tea business, in 1950 Ruth and David E. Bigelow sold their home in the city and moved to Connecticut. There they bought a small factory in the center of Norwalk, CT alongside the Norwalk River.
In 1957, the Bigelow’s moved their business a mile away to a classic New England brick factory building on Merwin Street in Norwalk, CT. It was not until 1958, a year after Bigelow moved to a larger plant in Norwalk, that the company bought its first tea bag machine. It was also in the late 1950s that the company began to make the transition from specialty shops to the supermarket.
In 1960, their son David joins the company. Ruth Bigelow died in 1966, followed by her husband in 1970. David Bigelow had already assumed leadership of the business in 1963.
David, with the unwavering support of his wife Eunice, lead the company with integrity, passion, intelligence, kindness and a spirit of determination to its current prominence as the country’s #1 specialty tea company.
Sales grew slowly but steadily, taking off in the 1970s when Bigelow began packing their teabags in folding cardboard boxes instead of tins.
The Bigelow Tea Company – American tea manufacturer
