Thomas Garway and Britain’s First Printed Tea Advertisement

TEA STORIES THROUGH TIME · ARTICLE 95

Thomas Garway and Britain's First Printed Tea Advertisement

How a coffee-house merchant used words to create interest in a product most Londoners did not yet understand.

Historical image of Garraways Coffee House

Garraway's Coffee House became associated with the early commercial promotion of tea in London.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons – Garraway's Coffee House

The first challenge was not merely selling tea. It was explaining what tea was.

The story

The Fitzwilliam Museum records that the first advertisement for tea in Britain was printed in a London weekly in September 1658. It described tea as an excellent China drink and directed customers to the Sultaness-head coffee house near the Royal Exchange.

Thomas Garway, also written Garraway, became one of the early merchants associated with promoting tea. The language of the period mixed commercial promise with medical claims, reflecting how new imported stimulants were introduced to consumers.

What the sources tell us

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The September 1658 printed advertisement is documented by the Fitzwilliam Museum.

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Tea was marketed through London coffee-house culture before becoming a normal household grocery.

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Historical medical claims in advertisements are evidence of marketing history, not modern scientific guidance.

Do not repeat old health claims as fact

Statements that tea could cure many illnesses belong to seventeenth-century advertising. They should be quoted only as historical examples and not used as current product claims.

Why the story still matters

Garway's story is an early lesson in category education. Customers could not ask for tea until someone gave them a name, a description, a place to taste it and reasons to care.

Modern exporters face the same task when a market is unfamiliar with a grade, leaf shape or preparation method. Clear education supports conversion better than exaggerated claims.