For more than 100 years, the very traditional tea company Hälsson & Lyon has been getting people excited for tea thanks to its high quality product and penchant for innovation. Hälsson & Lyon wanted to demonstrate to their business partners and clients that a traditional tea company can still cause a stir in today’s fast-moving times with a little creativity.

Stimulating black tea and invigorating substances such as guarana were finely pressed into thin sheets to create LSTea. Artists from around the world hand-drew the designs that were printed on the sheets with food colouring. The artists were given complete creative freedom and only asked to use LSTea’s hallucinogenic namesake and tea itself as inspiration.

LSTea was sent exclusively as a direct mail to around 550 major business clients. It cost 23 euros to produce one pack, each of which contained five sheets in different designs made of finely pressed tea. In total each pack produced 50 cups of tea. The results? Excellent tea and overwhelmingly positive feedback worldwide. The response rate is almost 50% and new deals have since concluded. LSTea is one of the most successful promotional campaign since the company’s 1879 founding. Consequently, Hälssen & Lyon will develop additional products based on the LSTea’s creativity. The provocative mailing made the world’s oldest drink interesting again. Each cup was celebrated, just like a trip. Business partners were duly impressed by the innovative direct mailing which demonstrated the company’s dedication to innovation. Design-oriented bloggers also discovered the limited edition trip in a cup, introducing a new, young target group to Hälsson and Lyon.