Producing the specially developed tea calendar for Hälssen & Lyon was a challenge! Nothing like this had ever been done before.

The greatest difficulty was that the individual tea calendar sheets needed to be pressed to a 1-millimetre thickness but should still remain stable. To achieve this, the first step was to produce a mixture of tea leaves, glucose syrup and aromas. With lots of manual labour and countless test runs, this mixture was baked, ground and then pressed to a thickness of just 1 millimetre. The next problem was printing the individual calendar sheets, since too much pressure would make them break and too little pressure would mean that that the colour wouldn’t take properly. The solution was a stamp, specially produced with white food colouring, with which the tea calendar sheets could be printed. The result was a calendar made from tea leaves. Each of the 365 tea calendar days can be individually detached and simply brewed directly in the cup with hot water, just like normal tea. Customers, suppliers and business partners who received the tea calendar will therefore enjoy an authentic taste of the innovative and diverse tea products from Hälssen & Lyon every day of the year.

The tea calendar, which enjoyed circulation in the triple digits, sustainably underlines Hälssen & Lyon’s role as an innovative trendsetter in modern tea development.

The response was overwhelming. This exceptional promotional medium achieved a response rate of over 50%. Existing business contacts were intensified and new orders were received. Numerous food and design blogs also reported on the innovative calendar. The project was picked up by the national and international media, generating valuable additional PR for Hälssen & Lyon. According to the company, the tea calendar is the most successful advertising campaign that Hälssen & Lyon has ever had. The company has therefore decided to develop further products based on the innovative process used for the tea calendar.