Tea and biscuits anyone?

The English and Scottish Joint Co-operative Wholesale Societies owned many tea plantations/estates in India and Africa. This is one of their calling cards used to promote their brands of tea c.1930.

A snapshot of a tea factory, possibly for the English and Scottish Joint CWS. I have no idea what that machine at the back is up to. If anyone has any suggestions then please let us know in a comment!

This is one of the English and Scottish Joint CWS's adverts handily transferred onto a postcard. Does anyone have any idea what is going on in this scene. Is she giving him a cup and saucer on his way to golf? A bit impractical. Is she giving him one to welcome him home? Give him a change to at least but his bags down! Is she just passing out tea to random passers by on their way to the golf in the middle of nowhere? Any suggestions? c.1930

Some kind enthusiast has collected hundreds of tea labels throughout the years and arranged them in a very large ledger for archivists like me to find in a basement one day. This is a page of one for the English and Scottish Joint CWS.

This casket is highly decorated with paintings of the CWS headquarters in different regions and prominent co-operators throughout history on it. Elaborate tins like this were presented at congress etc filled with free samples of CWS biscuits from either the Crumpsall biscuit factory in Manchester. or the United Co-operative Baking Society in Glasgow. I love the wheatsheaf clasp on the front of this one.

The Crumpsall Biscuit Works in Manchester had some fabulous labels for their biscuit tins. This is one of their rather regal ones. I love how it tells you nothing about the biscuits. There could be any manner of biscuits in there!

Just looking at them is making me peckish. Quite a noir sort of feel to those biscuits. Possibly they would have been featured on the side table in a Poirot mystery.

I love this guy. Sometimes in the project you find little things that come together through space and time (very sci-fi). Such as a label for a Harlequin biscuit tin and then...

...you find an original catalogue of the biscuit tins by the Crumpsall Biscuit Works factory from the 1930s and it has your Harlequin in, with annotations around him relating to the amount sold and other buyer/producer information. Not sure who put these annotations on or when, but things like this add a touch bit more archival value to the label as more history and more information can be known about it. A great value to research and general interest.