'Switch to Tea' urges the billboard. You can see it from the Sydney Harbour Bridge crossing north to south by road, peeking up from a building in The Rocks, the historical part of the harbour city. The mural doesn't say what beverage to switch from, but its simple message is striking enough for the seconds motorists have to read and process it.
The building is less than a century old but qualifies for heritage listing—a concept that amuses those from nations with much older built histories. It's called The Bushells Building, after Philip Howard Bushell, who brought his father's tea business to Sydney, and the billboard itself has been restored under the guidance of the New South Wales Heritage Office.
Philip's father, Alfred Thomas Bushell (1833-1910), was also arguably the 'father' of the Australian tea shop thanks to his wife Agnes, whose family was from the British tea trade, Brooke Bond, famous for brands such as PG Tips.
Bushell traded tea in Sydney but it was not until Agnes' death that he made a career change to become a shopkeeper. He moved north to Brisbane and in 1883 opened Australia's first tea shop with its signature blend of smooth, full-flavoured black tea. The blend became popular and led Bushell's sons Philip and Walter to take it south to Sydney (1890) and then Melbourne (1899), where they progressed from selling the tea at roadside stalls to conducting wholesale trade.
Alfred passed away in 1910 and his sons subsequently publicly listed the company as Bushells Ltd, eventually opening headquarters in The Bushells Building in 1925. In 1978 the Bushell family sold their shares to their cousins who were majority shareholders in Brooke Bond, which was later bought out by Unilever.
Today you will still see boxes of the Bushells brand of tea on Australian supermarket shelves, a comforting cuppa for those who have grown to love the tea that started as a blend for Australian tastes.
How tea and our tastes have changed since then! Pick up an Aussie brew today and it's likely to contain native ingredients such as lemon myrtle, eucalyptus and wattleseed. In many cases the tea may also be homegrown. What will you brew this 26 January?
