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In october my parents celebrated their 65 years of marriage, so I travelled – already for the second time this year as in March my mother celebrated her 90th birthday – all the way by car from Spain to Belgium. I´ve learnt during the 20odd years of living abroad that I better spread my trip over at least 2 days if I don´t want to spend at least a day completely exhausted and unable to do anything. However, this time, enjoying the nice weather, we took a scenic route ;-) and drove 3 days stopping at a friend´s place in the Lot (France) as well, for instance. We booked small B&Bs (chambres d´hôte) for the rest of the trip. In one of these, there was even a coffee and tea tray…it must be that a lot of British people stop here, as it´s not at all common to find that in continental B&Bs.
No black tea, only this “tisane” from a traditional French brand.
Yes, Martin, nowadays l´Eléphant is part of Unilever (since 1975) but the company dates back to 1892. And researching the matter, I found a great story : in 2010 Unilever wanted to close down the plant near Marseille (called Fralib then) where the l´Eléphant teabags are made, and the workers fought 1336 days to get control of the factory, which they finally managed with help of the département (who bought the land on which the factory stands). It´s a cooperative now and I read they mainly focus on teas based on natural and local plants. Their brand name is 1336, and they managed to realise profits in 2020. Originally, they had another claim, that of maintaining the brand name, but unilever refused and took the production to Poland although they sold the entire tea division at the end of 2021 to an investment fund, and I don´t know what consequences that had or will have, but it seems the Marseille employee owned Scop-Ti (current name of the company) will continue trying getting the l´éléphant brand name back.
Back to this tisane though…I had a “nuit tranquille” (quiet night), so that was OK ;-) As I´m not a fan nor an expert in herbal teas I cannot really judge but I thought this tisane lacked taste overall. Next time in France, I´ll look for the 1336 brand, only to support the workers I think it´s already worthwhile buying it.