Ty-Phoo Tea with Su Pollard UK TV Ad from the 80’s

Typhoo is a brand of tea in the United Kingdom. It was launched in 1903 by John Sumner Jr. of Birmingham, England.

 

n 1863, William Sumner published, A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London.

In 1870, William and his son John, founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William’s grandson, John Summer Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop.

Sumner set his own criteria for the new brand:

• The name had to be distinctive and unlike others.
• It had to be a name that would trip off the tongue.
• It had to be one that would be protected by registration.

As a fact, the name Typhoo came from the Chinese word for “doctor” (traditional Chinese: 大夫, hanyu pinyin: dai fu).

The Typhoo brand is well-known in Britain for its long running television commercial campaign jingles, one of the most popular being “There’s only one ‘T’ in Typhoo” and the current one being “You only get an oo with Typhoo,” referring to the sound of pleasure.

Info taken from Wikipedia