For three decades, Little Falls had a pretty remarkable connection to two names almost everyone knew from the grocery store — Red Rose and Salada Tea.

The Little Falls tea plant was already there before Red Rose production came to town. But beginning in 1988, the plant became the home of Red Rose tea for the American market, producing the familiar tea that would be shipped from the Mohawk Valley to store shelves and kitchen cupboards across the country.

That continued for 30 years, until 2018.

And if you remember Red Rose Tea, chances are you remember something else that came in the box — those little ceramic figurines.

The tiny collectibles were made by Wade pottery in England and became known to collectors as Wade Whimsies. Red Rose began offering Wade figurines in Canada in the 1960s, and they were introduced nationally in the United States in 1983.

Over the years there were all kinds of sets to collect — animals, circus figures, endangered species, Noah’s Ark and others. For a lot of kids, finding out which little figurine was inside was almost as much fun as the tea itself.

So for many of those years, while people all over the country were opening boxes of Red Rose Tea and collecting those little Wade figures, the tea itself was coming from Little Falls, New York.

Do you remember the Red Rose and Salada plant? Did you or someone in your family work there? And most importantly — do you still have any of those little figurines?