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As Twinings will be my "client" for this project I carried out some background information on the company, including what kind of teas they sell. I'm hoping for my travel mug to be aimed at coffee as well but because Twinings specialise in tea I might have to skip this idea.
Background Information
Twinings is a British-based tea company where a man named Thomas Twining wanted to produce a drink to topple coffee from the top spot as the nation's favourite beverage. The company was birthed 300 years ago – 1706 – and even now tea is a definite passion of theirs. They haven't sold any range of coffees (from what I can see of their product range) which shows that they have been true to Thomas Twining in promoting tea, even to this day and age.
“So far, ten generations of the Twining family have been there to watch it all happen, from the creation of our famous English Breakfast blend to supplying tea to the Red Cross for food parcels during the war. In fact, Stephen Twining still works for his family's company, helping to make sure Thomas's promise is never broken.”
(Quote source: History of Twinings)
When I went onto their tea section I was overwhelmed by the different types of tea they sell; they sell so many flavours! Here is a list of the types of tea they provide:
Limited Edition Early Grey's
Black Tea
Decaffeinated Tea
Everyday Tea
Floral Tea
Green Tea
Redbush Tea
White Tea
Organic Tea
Flavoured Black Teas - International
Classic Earl Grey
Afternoon Tea:
English Breakfast Tea
Assam Tea
Fruit and Herbal Teas
Simple Fruit Infusion Tea
Herbal Benefits Tea Blends
Black Loose Tea
White Loose Tea
Green Loose Tea
Oolong Loose Tea
Darjeeling Loose Tea
Flowers, Herbals and Fruit Loose Tea
Lady Grey
Yellow Loose Tea
You get the gist of it... They do do a wide range of teas, but from this list I can see that there are some main sections: Green, Black, Earl Grey, Herbal and Floral. Hopefully my design can cover most of these sections but I might have to do some variations in design just in case... But it would be more cost effective if I just produced one design. If I did two, Twinings would have to produce twice as many products and if one sells more than the other than the other would just be a waste.
Main Types of Tea
Green Tea
I went to take a look at their Green Tea selection and there's actually a variety of them: Finest China Green Tea, Chinese Jasmine Tea... And some of them have pretty cool names like Finest Gunpowder Green Tea! I want to just look at Green Tea on the whole to find out their characteristics, so I selected Finest China Green Tea.
This is a picture of the Finest China Green Tea, and as you can see instead of having a tea bag it's a pack of loose tea leaves. These tea leaves sparked the idea of having tea leaves as a texture of pattern in the background... I might try out a little sketch or two on this idea!
Here's what they wrote about this tea:
“Drink Green Tea - the British Journal of Nutrition has revealed that drinking more than three cups of green tea a day was found to protect against cell deterioration as we age. DNA tests showed the equivalent of five extra years on the tea drinkers' lives.”
and
“It's hand-plucked and rolled and the resulting tea has a delicate flavour and a pale yellow liquor.
Like all green teas, it contains less caffeine than black teas, and it makes a great after-dinner palate cleanser, especially after a spicy curry!”
(Quotes from: Twinings Finest China Green Tea)
I have heard quite a few good things about Green Tea and what it does to improve your health, so I might try to highlight this within my design or at least try it out when I next do some little doodles.
Earl Grey
Early Grey is another type of tea that Twinings produce and they too have quite a variety of Earl Grey but I, like I have done for Green Tea, shall just go with the 'normal' Earl Grey.
They haven't written much about Earl Grey aside from the fact that, “light, fragrant and with a distinctive bergamot and lemon flavour, our Earl Grey still has all the taste of the original, and we like to think it's still the best” and that it was brought to Twinings by the Georgian Prime Minister, Earl Grey. Unlike Finest China Green Tea, Earl Grey is in a tea bag. I could draw the tea bag with a little tag saying “Earl Grey” or something, or even have a little tag hanging out of a mug or cup.
(Quote source: Twinings Earl Grey)
Black Tea
I haven't heard of Black Tea before I came across the Twinings website, and they don't really state what Black Tea actually is so I had to have a little look around at other websites and came across this one, Tea Palace. Here's what they said about Black tea in particular: “Black teas get their characteristic flavour and colour from a natural oxidation process, which follows initial drying and rolling of the leaves after they have been picked.”
On that website they've actually listed four main types of tea: Black, White, Green and Oolong, so I was nearly right! After further investigation these categories were confirmed by Twinings as I came across a page I didn't see at first. It seems that Earl Grey actually falls under the category of Black Teas.
White Tea
White Tea is the rarest of all of the teas that Twinings produce, as they can only be plucked once a year. Here's a description of white tea from Twinings:
“These teas are produced using only the first bud and top leaf from the new season’s tea bush. The tea is withered and then dried. White tea got its name due to the fine white downy hairs that covers the first bud. These teas are very pale in colour, light and delicate in taste.”
They don't really provide an image of what White tea actually looks like, so I'll be looking for images of it from other websites. Twinings only present them as in tea bags, but it'll be interesting to see the differences in tea leaves.
(Quote source: Twinings Basics of Tea)
Oolong
Oolong is a type of Chinese tea where the leaves are slightly twisted, giving it it's name “Wu Long” which means “Black Dragon” as these twisted leaves resemble the “twisted bodies of Chinese mythical dragons”. Now these are very interesting to look at, and I would love to draw them! Perhaps I could sneak in some doodles of Chinese dragons as well?
“Infused with bright fruit flavours, this range is berry delicious and perfect for those moments when your usual brew won’t hit the spot. Drunk without milk, it’s the refreshing boost your day needs when you feel like something different.”
(Quote sources: Twinings Finest Oolong)
Other Websites
After looking at all of these teas I managed to find a little chart online where they show what each type of tea looks like before they've been put in a tea bag. This was quite interesting because I could just imagine dotting some tea leaves in the background to create a little pattern or texture.
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| Image source: http://www.cooking-with-us.com/greentea.php |
Here's another series of photos that show what they look like from Culinate.
From left to right: Black, Green, White and Oolong.
Conclusion:
This research has helped me realise that Twinings only really sell teas, so I would need to stop drawing doodles of coffee and just focus on that. This product is, after all, going to be for Twinings so it'll be nice to promote what they sell. I would like to highlight each aspect of these main types of tea but I know that the motivational quote will be the main focal point, so I might have to reduce it to a single word or just as a little illustration.
It really helped that I actually looked at other websites for the different types of tea because Twinings didn't really provide photos of what the tea leaves actually looked like, and only presented them in their packages.
[n] Learning Outcome
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