Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
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THE WHOLE LEAF by Manish Shah NICOLE O'BANION Part 1: Is tea ready for the big time? n May, the Los Angeles Times published an article touting the growth potential of specialty tea, bringing national exposure to the beverage we work with every day. Among the figures used to illustrate tea's promise was research from Packaged Facts stating that domestic tea sales at shops, grocery stores and restaurants hit $15.7 billion in 2012, up more than 30 percent from 2007. With more and more people talking about the future of tea, I began to wonder: Is tea the next big thing? And if so, what does this "future" look like? To further probe these questions, I turned to four veterans of the tea industry: • DOUG PALAS, director of tea and tea buyer for Kilogram Tea (an arm of Intelligentsia Coffee) • DAN BOLTON, consultant, writer and editor of Tea Biz Blog, and former editor/publisher of Tea Magazine and World Tea News • BRIAN KEATING, veteran tea industry trend watcher and publisher of the Specialty Tea Is "Hot" Report • MIKE SPILLANE, president and owner of G.S. Haly Co., an importer of fine specialty teas for more than 120 years After asking each of these men whether tea is the "next big thing," I noticed a common theme in their responses: It's not I the next big thing because it already is a big thing. And it's on a trajectory for continued growth. FACTORS DRIVING GROWTH The Packaged Facts numbers cited previously prove that tea has come a long way from the early '90s, when it was a $1.5 billion industry. This expansion is due primarily to three factors: health, wealth and technology. During the last 20 years, studies have continued to add to the body of evidence that drinking tea is good for one's health. The perception of tea as a healthy beverage continues to gain traction across nearly every age category. Medical researchers have examined the effects of drinking tea on nearly every bodily system, and today we can find tea in everything from lotions to weight-loss products. The perception of tea as a healthy beverage has been solidified and continues to gain traction across nearly all demographics. Tea is good not just for the body but for the wallet—the beverage boasts some of the largest margins in the beverage industry, and this has not gone unnoticed. Last year, Starbucks acquired the specialty-tea retailer Teavana and its 300-plus stores. Keating calls continued on page 67 64 Fresh Cup Magazine freshcup.com