Yorkshire Tea came under fire this week when rival companies Tetley’s and PG Tips accused them of causing unnecessary offence. The two companies joined forces in a bid to have Yorkshire Tea boxes moved out of sight and preferably out of mind. They have called for them be moved into supermarket store rooms, tea shop back rooms, or anywhere they can’t be seen by the public.

Tetley’s issued the following statement this week:

“As an all-encompassing tea firm, we at Tetley’s believe that by supporting Yorkshire Tea, drinkers are unknowingly encouraging segregation and bigotry. One cannot argue that one tea is better than another tea just because of where it happens to be from. All tea is equal in our eyes. If Yorkshire Tea insist on using their birthplace as a selling point them we encourage proprietors of tea to take action now.”

Quick to jump on the bandwagon, Twinings chipped in:

“The red banner alongside the Yorkshire Tea box is probably representative of a communist red flag of defiance.”

Rocky, a coffee shop owner in Liverpool, says he’s doing his bit:

“I won’t be serving Yorkshire Tea to my customers from now on. Their name is offensive to anyone who isn’t from or doesn’t like Yorkshire,” Rocky told his favourite satirical news site.

“I’ve been serving it for years without a second thought until I read that article by Tetley’s. And Twinings are right, that red banner is a big ‘fuck you’ to the other tea makers of the world. I don’t want to take a chance that I might be offending someone, so from now on I will only serve neutral tea to my customers. If the suppliers send me Yorkshire Tea, I’ll leave it out back in the dark where it can’t cause mischief.”

Yorkshire tea released the following press statement direct to Tetley’s and PG Tips:

“We’ve thought long and hard about how to respond to these ludicrous accusations. We’d really like to tell you all to piss off and stop being so politically correct. Especially you, Tetley’s, with your suspiciously Yorkshire-sounding cartoon characters. Instead, we’ve decided to pretend that our company was founded by Mr and Mrs Yorkshire; much in the same way as Tetley’s is your surname, we’re just using ours.

“And PG. Really, do we need to go down the talking chimpanzee route? No animals are harmed during the making of ‘our’ tea.”

The National Tea Board of the UK told us, “Consumers are of course free to choose for themselves, just as long as their choices don’t offend anyone.”

We at The Sceptical Poet only drinks coffee, so we’re ok…