The Tetley Tea Folk (Left to Right: Maurice, Gordon, Sydney, Gaffer, Archie, Clarence and Tina)
The Tetley Tea Folk were the mascots of Tetley Tea from 1973-2002 and again from 2010-2016 (& on packaging from 2012-2019.)
They were a group of small humans led by Gaffer, who was the first member of the group to appear in the adverts in 1973. He was joined by Sydney in 1975, Maurice in 1982, Clarence in 1988, Gordon in 1989 and Tina in 1990. In 1993, Gaffer's nephew Archie joined the group.
In 2002, Tetley decided to axe the tea folk from their adverts in order to make more modern adverts to encourage younger drinkers.
In 2010, the tea folk returned to adverts with the first advert showing them being revived after a man spills tea.
In August 2013 to June 2015, Tetley launched animated sponsorship ads for movies on Channel 5. Gaffer and Sydney were in a CGI appearance in the sponsorships with some movie genres.
The Tea Folk were originally hand drawn animated until 2014 when they became CGI with outlines. The first of these adverts showed them preventing an alien invasion by giving the aliens tea. A later advert showed the Tea Folk using tea to stop a medival battle.
The Tea Folk made their final appearance in the Best of British ad in January 2016.
In 2023, Gaffer made an appearance in the inside of the boxes. This was likely for the '#GafferisBack' competition, in which the first 3 people to find him on the new pack & send Tetley a picture would receive a new pack of their choice.
Gaffer was originally voiced by Brian Glover until his death in 1997; Bobby Knutt took over from then on. Sydney was voiced by George Layton.