Russian brand recreates famous faces in tea for new pack design

A new brand of tea has been launched in Russia that uses tea leaves to recreate the images of famous people at the centre of each pack.

Famous Tea is available in flavours including mint, lemon, clove and strawberry. Each flavour is associated with a different celebrity – complete with a tea-based pun and a rendering of the person’s face made out of tea leaves and fruit.

The celebrities include the actor Benedict Cumberbatch, musician John Lennon, and the current queen of the UK Elizabeth II.

The packaging is the work of Yekaterinburg-based design agency Pride, who told FoodBev that the quirky illustrations were designed to celebrate the British heritage of tea while still appealing to consumers in Russia’s premium tea segment.

“In England, tea has become a truly national drink,” it said. “Therefore, the English theme in the concept of tea packaging design looks absolutely organic.”

Each portrait was created meticulously by hand using real tea leaves. The different flavours are represented through the use of fruits, berries and leaves – like lemons, strawberries, pieces of clove and sprigs of mint – as well as in the names of each variant.

Incidentally, it’s not the first beverage brand to use the pun ‘John Lemon’; two years ago, soft drinks company Mr Lemonade debuted a range of fruit-flavoured drinks in the UK that used the same play-on-words.

In the Famous Tea range, product differentiation is driven further by colour-coordinated bands at the bottom of each pack, as well as in the side panels.

The tactile and pared-back design helps to reinforce a premium feel, while touches of gold emphasise quality and authenticity.

Pride told FoodBev that Famous Tea was a new brand offering for the Russian market. It previously designed a range of meat products that featured ‘shadow puppets’ of farm animals, as well as maps of the farm where the meat was sourced, on pack.