PG Tips
Tea trademark
PG Tips is a brand of tea in the United Kingdom manufactured by Lipton Teas and Infusions.
Brand name
In the 1930s, Brooke Bond launched PG Tips in the tea market in the United Kingdom under the name Pre-Gestee, a variant of the original name "Digestive Tea". The name implied that it could be drunk as a digestive aid prior to eating food. Grocers and salesmen abbreviated it to "PG".
Following the Second World War, labelling regulations ruled out describing tea as aiding digestion—a property that had been attributed to tea—and by 1950–1951 the PG name was adopted. The company added Tips referring to the fact that only the tips (the top two leaves and bud) of the tea plants are used in the blend.
Products
The Brooke Bond name has now been dropped from all packaging and the product is now known as PG Tips. It is available as loose tea, tea bags, and in vending formats. A "Special Blend" tea, which is the same as the tea blended for the brand's 75th anniversary, is available in tea bag form only. The tea used in PG Tips is imported in bulk as estate teas from around the world and blended in precise proportions set by the tea tasters to make blend 777, which can contain between 12 and 35 estate teas (depending on the season, etc.) at the Trafford Park factory in the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, Greater Manchester.
“PG Tips” enters the record as tea trademark. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tips and trademark can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“PG Tips” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Tips and trademark provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2044120. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1950 and 1951.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “PG Tips”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow PG Tips primary sources, PG Tips archive and Tips research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “PG Tips”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “PG Tips” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.