Curtis Tea is a premium tea brand owned by Orimi Trade — Russia’s largest tea company, based in Saint Petersburg — launched in 2005 as the more exclusively positioned, upscale sibling brand to Greenfield Tea within the Orimi portfolio, targeting the luxury and gift tea segment of the Russian market with an English country house aesthetic — refined packaging evoking British aristocratic tea culture, with rich colours, ornate typography, and gift box sets — and a range of flavoured, specialty, and classic English-style teas including Earl Grey, English Breakfast, and a wide variety of fruit and floral flavoured black and green teas designed specifically for Russian consumer preferences. Curtis is positioned as the “gift tea” brand — the product a Russian consumer would reach for when buying tea as a premium present, for decorating a table setting, or for serving to guests in an upscale context — and the brand’s English country house visual language deliberately invokes the social prestige associated with British tea culture in the Russian imagination, where British tea (from the Victorian and Edwardian eras through to the present) has been associated with refinement, sophistication, and elite taste. Orimi Trade’s dual-brand premium strategy — with Curtis at the luxury tier and Greenfield at the premium specialty tier — mirrors the portfolio architecture of major consumer goods companies that maintain separate brands for adjacent price and positioning segments within the same category.

In-Depth Explanation

Curtis operates in the gift and luxury tea segment — a distinct commercial category from everyday premium tea (Greenfield’s territory), where the product’s primary purchase occasion is gifting, decoration, or social display rather than personal daily consumption.

The Gift Tea Market

The gift tea market has specific product requirements that differ from everyday tea:

• Packaging premium: Gift tea packaging must justify the price difference over commodity teas; the container (tin, box, canister) may be as important as the tea itself.
• Variety and occasion: Gift sets often comprise multiple varieties, allowing the recipient to sample a range rather than receiving a single product.
• Visual aesthetics: The visual design must communicate luxury, care, and thoughtfulness — Curtis’s ornate British country house aesthetic is specifically calibrated for Russian consumer associations of high-status gifting.

Russia has a strong tradition of gift-giving with high-quality packaged food products — tea, chocolate, coffee, and confectionery are all significant gift categories, and the visual packaging quality of a gift product is a primary signal of the giver’s regard for the recipient.

British Aesthetic in the Russian Market

The choice of a British country house aesthetic for Curtis is a calculated cultural reference. In Russia, British tea culture — the formal afternoon tea, the fine bone china, the country estate setting — carries strong associations of refinement and elite taste that date back to the 19th century when British tea culture was aspirationally adopted by the Russian aristocracy and upper middle class. Curtis’s packaging taps into this cultural association, positioning the product as the equivalent of what a sophisticated, Anglophile Russian consumer would understand as “proper English tea.”

Orimi Trade Portfolio Architecture

Within Orimi Trade’s portfolio, Curtis and Greenfield occupy distinct positions:

• Greenfield: Premium specialty, broad variety, individual pyramid bag focus.
• Curtis: Luxury gift tier, English country house aesthetics, gift box sets.

The portfolio architecture allows Orimi to compete across the premium and luxury tea segments without cannibalising either brand.

History

• 2005: Curtis Tea launched by Orimi Trade as the luxury/gift tier sibling to Greenfield; English country house aesthetic; gift box positioning.
• 2000s–2010s: Established in the Russian luxury tea gift market; strong seasonal sales (New Year, International Women’s Day — the primary Russian gifting occasions).
• Present: Orimi Trade brand; luxury tier positioning; English-style flavoured and specialty teas; gift sets and decorative packaging; Russia and CIS distribution.

Social Media Sentiment

• Russian gift buyers: Curtis is highly rated as a premium gift tea in Russia — the packaging design quality and the variety selection make it a popular gifting choice for major Russian celebration occasions.
• Tea aesthetics community: The decorative packaging design is appreciated on its own merits by packaging and design enthusiasts; Curtis tins and boxes appear regularly in Russian lifestyle and home decor content.
• International awareness: Less known outside Russia and CIS than in the domestic market — Curtis is a successful Russian brand with limited international profile.
• Gifting culture: Curtis’s strong positioning in the New Year and International Women’s Day gifting seasons (Russia’s two most significant consumer gifting periods) reflects the brand’s identity as fundamentally a gifting product rather than an everyday brand.

Last updated: 2026-06

Related Terms

• Russian Tea Culture
• Earl Grey Tea
• Flavoured Tea
• Gift Tea
• British Tea Culture
• Greenfield Tea
• Orimi Trade

See Also

• Sakubo – Japanese Study

Research

• Curtis Tea launch (2005) and Orimi Trade’s dual-brand premium strategy.
  Summary: Documents the 2005 launch of Curtis Tea by Orimi Trade as the luxury gift tier sibling to Greenfield within the Orimi premium portfolio — the dual-brand architecture placing Curtis at the luxury gifting tier and Greenfield at the premium specialty tier; the English country house visual aesthetic that differentiates Curtis from Greenfield; and Orimi Trade’s portfolio strategy of competing across adjacent premium and luxury tea segments with distinct brand identities rather than a single extended brand.

• The Russian gift tea market: packaging premium, gifting occasions, and British aesthetic associations.
  Summary: Examines the Russian gift tea market as a distinct commercial category — the packaging quality as a primary signal of gifting regard, the variety gift set format that allows sampling rather than a single product, and the British country house aesthetic Curtis uses to tap into Russian cultural associations of British tea culture with refinement, sophistication, and elite taste dating from the 19th-century Anglophile aspiration of the Russian aristocracy; the alignment of Curtis’s launch and seasonal sales strategy with Russia’s major gifting occasions (New Year, International Women’s Day).

• British tea culture as a prestige reference in Russia: historical associations and their commercial use.
  Summary: Covers the historical and cultural background to British tea culture’s prestige status in Russia — the 19th-century Anglophile adoption of formal tea culture by Russian aristocracy and upper middle class, the formal afternoon tea and fine bone china as symbols of elite taste; and how Curtis deliberately invokes this cultural association through ornate typography, rich colours, and country estate visual references in its packaging design to position the product as “proper English tea” in the Russian consumer imagination.

• Orimi Trade’s premium brand portfolio: Greenfield, Curtis, Tess, and the Russian tea market.
  Summary: Covers Orimi Trade as Russia’s largest tea company — the multi-brand portfolio (Greenfield as premium specialty, Curtis as luxury gift tier, Tess as premium everyday, Printsessa Nuri as accessible); the Saint Petersburg headquarters and global tea sourcing from major producing regions; the blending-and-packaging business model; and the portfolio architecture that allows Orimi to compete across multiple value tiers of the Russian tea market without brand cannibalisation, mirroring the portfolio strategies of major international consumer goods companies.