Opposite The Earl Grey Pub on the Inner Road, a series of commercial buildings used to be rented by the Overseas Trading Corporation (OTC), a tea blending and trading company – hence the pub’s name.

From the 1870s onward, hundreds of tonnes of tea were imported, blended, made into tea bags, packed, and exported all over the globe under Lyon’s, Tetley’s or Horniman’s labels from Jersey.

Thomas Cook (not that one, but an export merchant from Reading) chose to run the company here, all to avoid paying the British tea tax.

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Pictured: The previous factory of the Overseas Trading Company, which produced King Charles’s chosen brew. (Jersey Journey Boutique)

Tea is a drink with jam, bread, and a soon-to-be-anointed king, as it turns out.

A Charles-lookalike was once the poster-boy for Horniman’s tea, as shown in this Spanish advert.

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Pictured: A Spanish advert for Hornimans tea used a Prince Charles look alike to endorse its brew. (Jersey Heritage)

Who knew the Jersey origins of the brew in that teacup…