PG TIPS: VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Today, Mike and I were at the Park Slope Food Co-op buying our groceries for the week. He picked up an item I had never seen before: PG Tips, a kind of tea. Totally English. Seemed to go with Mike's proclivity towards wearing tweed coats and wool jaunty caps, eating butterscotch candies, reading Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and using canes for daily walks through mist and bogs.

Just kidding about the proclivities - well, sort of.

Anyway, I was curious about the PG Tips tea, so I went to their website and found the most awesome video EVER. How great is it to have a stuffed monkey as a mascot for TEA????!!!

Click HERE to watch the PG Tips video with monkey pictured above.

Click HERE to read is a little background on the unfolding of these monkey-licious ads.

Here is the PG history, laid out nicely on the "About Us" portion of their website:

• 1869 - The first brew

  Arthur Brooke opens his first shop in Manchester, and its success lays in his sale of reliable tea blends. His big break comes in the late 1870s when a grocer asks for a bulk order of tea at wholesale prices.

• 1930s - The pre-digestive era

  Arthur Brooke launches in the UK tea market under the name of 'Pre-Gest-Tee'' - suggesting that the tea could be drunk before food was digested. Grocers abbreviate it to PG, and the company adds 'tips' to highlight the fact that PG uses the top two leaves and a bud to make its tea.

• 1950s - A chimp tea party

  With the launch of independent television, the first PG tips 'chimpanzees' advert appears. The PG tips chimps are soon superstars in their own right.

• 1960 - It's in the bag

  The makers of PG tips introduce the tea bag to a stunned nation. They catch on quickly and there are reports of mass hysteria. Tea bags soon out-sell loose-leaf tea.

• 1996 - The 8th wonder of the world

  The makers of PG tips launch the revolutionary PG tips pyramid bags. With more room inside it acts like a miniature teapot, giving the leaves more room to move.

• 2008 - Green leaves

  PG tips joins forces with the Rainforest Alliance to ensure that by 2010 all PG tips tea suppliers meet their high sustainability standards. AND launches its new Green tea range. Phew!