In the UK, Brooke Bond is associated with PG Tips. What do the initials represent?

In the 1930s, Brooke Bond launched PG Tips in the tea market in the United Kingdom under the name Pre-Gest-Tee. The name implied that it could be drunk prior to eating food, as a digestive aid. Grocers and salesmen abbreviated it to PG.

After the Second World War, labelling regulations ruled out describing tea as aiding digestion (a property that had been attributed to tea) and by 1950/1 the PG name was adopted. The company added "Tips" referring to the fact that only the tips (the top two leaves and bud) of the tea plants are used in the blend.

The Brooke Bond name has now been dropped from all packaging, and the product is now known as PG Tips. PG Tips is available as loose tea, tea bags, and in vending formats. A "Special Blend" tea, which is the same as the tea blended for the brand's 75th anniversary, is available in tea bag form only. The tea used in PG Tips is imported in bulk as single estate teas from around the world and blended in precise proportions set by the tea tasters to make blend 777, which can contain between 12 and 35 single estate teas at any one time.