Yorkshire Tea and PG Tips among tea brands slammed for 'anti-racist' support despite colonial history

There’s something brewing between three major tea brands – PG Tips, Yorkshire Tea and TeaPigs – when it comes to showing their support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

It all started when YouTuber Laura Towler posted a tweet about how glad she was that Yorkshire Tea hasn’t been a vocal supporter of BLM:

After two days, Yorkshire Tea responded:

As a result of Yorkshire Tea’s support for the BLM movement, some people began calling for a boycott of the tea brand.

But then rival tea brand PG Tips then also expressed their support:

And just when you thought you couldn’t possibly fit any more tea, TeaPigs jumped in too:

Some praised the tea brands for their support to the Black Lives Matter cause:

While others weren’t having any of it, pointing out the “problematic” colonial history of tea:

Historically, the British Empire was largely responsible for introducing tea to the African continent and India through imperialism and colonialism.

To produce tea cheaply, colonialists grew it in these areas – using slave labour – and exported it back to Britain. It became a huge industry off the back of slavery.

So perhaps a longer statement which addressed this fact would have been more appropriate than some tweets?