Staff Report

Dethlefsen & Balk (D&B), the renowned trading house, tea refiner, tea accessory designer and coffee roaster, celebrated its 175th anniversary this year.
The company combines the Hanseatic tea tradition with modern business culture.

The firm’s philosophy is to be a leader in both products and customer services, and in this spirit it released a celebratory publication containing not just the inspiring history of the company but also precious anecdotes related to the company’s staff and management that showcase a very human – and humorous – side of the company.

How it all started
Gustav C.H.J. Balck, at the time still spelled with a “ck”, founded an import business for “all kinds of spices and tea” in 1836, in Neue Burg no. 20 in the old town of Hamburg. He was succeeded by his son Gustav Balk in 1870, who teamed up with Amandus Dethlefsen and from then on, under the name “Dethlefsen & Balk – tea trade en gros, the company concentrated its entrepreneurial activities on importing Chinese tea.
At the time dispatching tea from China was nearly an art form. Specially built wooden boxes were made of fir or spruce, reinforced with tightly woven mats of hemp. They were then lined with lead foil and, once filled, covered with rice straw paper and varnished. All because the precious content had to survive the then at least 100-day-long sea voyage.

In 1892 Dethlefsen & Balk rented storage rooms and an office in the newly-developed warehouse district, the Speicherstadt. A year later Amandus Dethlefsen retired after 23 years in the business. He was replaced by Balk’s son Heinrich, who became sole owner in 1899 and who went on to become a member of the Versammlung eines Ehrbaren Kaufmanns zu Hamburg e.V., or Assembly of Honourable Merchants of Hamburg. The founding family stayed in control until 1905, when Heinrich sold the company.
There were many ups and downs in Dethlefsen & Balk’s long history, glamorous phases and trailblazing ideas, such as adding tea accessories to the merchandise as early as the 1970s. There were also bad times, including what the company refers to as “crass mismanagement”, which nearly led to bankruptcy in the early 1990s. When the company tried to make a fresh start, it found that: “conditions were rather modest: our predecessors had left us a warehouse full of widely unusable knickknacks.”
But new owners, a new management and a young, inspired team quickly raised D&B up from the dumps. In the late nineties it modernized its computer system and moved to bigger, more modern accommodation with high rack storage areas and flow racks. There it worked with the computer aided Fifo system (First in, first out), which always assures ideal freshness of goods and reduces storage periods to an absolute minimum, in line with customer expectations.
Within a very short time, D&B managed to restyle its successful traditional labels and take on a leading role in the international tea trade. It established the label ChaCult internationally, considerably increased its trade fair activities and, after diversifying its range in 2004, it also become an active player outside the world of tea. D&B’s coffee label Cafe Cult is today much more than just an insider’s tip - it’s cult.

Know what you are getting
“Waiter. If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee,” Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have once said in a restaurant. With D&B you know what you are getting. And it will most certainly not be bad teas or coffees. Because with all its experience, this long but naturally never-ending learning process, in which its customers and friends always incite it to reach for new heights, D&B is an internationally-appreciated partner. And that may also explain how D&B has managed for the past 175 years to enrich the world of good taste.
Modifying an old saying one could say: “Tea and coffee are not everything, but without tea and coffee everything else is nothing.” Or at least a lot less.
One of Winston Churchill’s fiercest political opponents was Lady Nancy Astor. “Sir, if you were my husband, I’d poison your tea,.” She once said to the great man. Churchill countered: “Madam, if I were your husband, I’d drink it.” Of course there are other occasions for a decent cup of tea. D&B has given tea lovers good reasons for 175 years.
“We will continue to work hard to serve you as a useful and reliable partner, hoping to share our good working atmosphere and love for our choice products, we trust you will continue along this road with us,” a company statement reads. “Only ask the best of us, because that is what we promise. Not all teas are equal. Cultivation, processing and packaging make the difference. And we stand for this difference.  
“We will continue looking all over the world with expert knowledge for those products which will make your everyday life more pleasant. With consistencey and good spirits we will always do a bit more than just ‘our job’, you can count on that. In this respect we would welcome your continuing trust. All the more so as, with us, it is in good hands.
“We’ll expect you 25 years from now on the occasion of our 200th anniversary, fresh as ever, of course, and again with a good cup of tea or coffee. D&B remains cult!”