Page 46 - Forbes - USA (November 2019)

CONTRARIAN ENTREPRENEURS

By Chloe Sorvino Photograph by Aaron Kotowsk for Forbes

High Tea

42
After three generations, the Bigelow clan has steadfastly remained upscale in a

S down-market world. All it took was bagging the family drama.
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C old product line. It’s so not cool and relevant.’ But Tea Time

“People say, ‘Oh, look at that little conventional
CEO Cindi Bigelow
drinks a cup of
I’m like, ‘Wait, whoa-whoa-whoa!’ ” she says. “We
Constant Comment
put everything into the product. Everything.”
at company
headquarters in
The CEO of Bigelow Tea revels in this show of Fairfield, Connecticut.
quality—for her, a key ingredient to remaining the The plant attached
to the offices seals
top specialty tea seller in the U.S. The Bigelows have 178 tea bags every
Cindi Bigelow rips open a accomplished what is only a half-steeped dream for minute.
bag of her family’s Earl Grey tea, splaying the con- most family businesses: passing the company down
tents out on a crisp white napkin to highlight the from the first generation to the second and, with
dark, black leaves inside. With the scent of Calabri- Cindi, 59, to the third.
an bergamot lingering, she tears open two more A lot of credit goes to holding firm to tradition,
bags from much larger competitors, dumping each including still using the recipe Cindi’s grand-
onto the napkin, huffing at the contents: synthet- mother created in her kitchen in 1945 for its sig-
ic white flavor crystals in one, pieces of light brown nature Constant Comment tea. Her father, Da-
tea plant stem, a bitter-tasting filler, in the other. vid, took over the business from her grandmoth-

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