Organic tea company Honest Tea is removing a Donald Trump quote from its bottle caps, although for reasons that have nothing to do with the 2016 presidential election.
The quote in question is: “If you’re going to think anyway, you might as well think big. Donald Trump.” It received social media attention after Paul Shapiro, an Honest Tea customer, tweeted an image of the bottle cap.
Funny that the bottle of @HonestTea I just bought quotes @realDonaldTrump on the cap: pic.twitter.com/FNCzryypBz
— Paul Shapiro (@PaulHShapiro) December 27, 2015
“I usually don’t think of organic green tea consumers as target demographic for Donald Trump,” Shapiro told the Associated Press.
Honest Tea responded to Shapiro a few hours later on Twitter, saying the company is “in the process of” phasing out the Trump quote from its caps.
@shobbins @pshapiro Don’t worry! We’re in the process of having his quote removed from our caps.
— Honest Tea (@HonestTea) December 28, 2015
Seth Goldman, co-founder of Honest Tea, explained to the AP that bottle-cap quotes get rotated in and out every 18 months, and this particular quote from the billionaire mogul was already on the chopping block before Shapiro’s tweet.
“There’s nothing objectionable to the thought,” Goldman said about Trump’s quote, alleviating concerns that the company was making a political statement.
He also said that Coca-Cola, which bought Honest Tea in 2011, advised its new acquisition that there was less of a chance of offending consumers if the quotes on their bottle caps were from people who have been long dead.
Quotes from “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling and legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden are also being removed from Honest Tea bottle caps for “legal or other reasons,” according to the AP.
Trump currently sits at second place in the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings.
