Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/48160
4d][ `VS SRW`]d What will new origins bring to the specialty tea party? E elcome to the Tea Almanac, our annual collec- tion of leaf-related features. The stories in this year's edition span the globe—we take a look, for instance, at the high-end Lapsang Souchong grown in China's Fujian province, as well as tea's role of peace in war-torn locales like Lebanon. Another stop on the journey is Kenya, where I look at the country's nascent involvement with the specialty tea market ("Crush, Tear, Branch Out," p. 26). Kenya may not be a familiar origin to some in the specialty tea industry, but it's a global powerhouse in the wider tea world: The country is one of the world's leading exporters of CTC black teas, which constitute many of the tea bags millions drop into hot water every day. Profiling the country's tea culture was an eye-opening expe- rience that helped me put the U.S. specialty tea industry in per- spective. That industry has been experiencing steady growth in recent years, and because this magazine has been a champion of that expansion, it can be easy to fall into the trap of feeling like the U.S. specialty tea industry is bigger than it is. In reality, though, specialty tea is still a blip on the global tea radar. In writing the Kenya article, I interviewed David Walker, an industry veteran who has done consulting work at origins across the planet, including Kenya (which also happens to be his birthplace). "The specialty tea market, although it's growing at such a huge rate here in the United States, is still miniscule when you compare it with the bulk tea market in the world," he told me. While that perspective may have burst my bubble a bit, it also gave me a boost of enthusiasm about the future of this busi- ness, and how origins like Kenya may push specialty forward. While Kenya may not have a significant specialty presence at the moment, the country has an infrastructure in place now to produce orthodox teas for the specialty market and will be making efforts to increase that presence in the coming years. More specialty teas coming from Kenya to the United States will only increase the market here at home, and Kenya is just one origin previously not exalted in our circles that could be mak- ing a name for itself in the not-too-distant future. Walker has been working with producers in Guatemala, Bolivia and Nepal, helping them put plants in the ground and build infrastructures to process teas for the specialty market. That work being done on the ground is a vital element to new origins succeeding in the specialty market, where they must compete on the quality front with high-quality teas from heralded countries such as China, India and Japan. Manish Shah, owner of Tucson, Ariz.- based Maya Tea Company, says he has witnessed the new origin boom firsthand. "I've tasted some teas from Nepal, Vietnam and Thailand that are just rocking the house," he says. "But there is a lot of room for growing better tea at different origins." Already some of these teas are making their way into the United States to entice curious consumers. And those con- sumers are an important component in this equation—as any market research honcho will tell you, American customers are defined by their insatiable thirst for offerings that scream fresh and new. "Tea lovers find the more unusual teas inspira- tional," says tea author Jane Pettigrew. "It gives them a story to tell, and they love sharing and passing on their excitement and passion." A breadth of options from various origins is a key way for the specialty tea industry to hook consumers on its product. On the retail level, if teas from new origins become available for purchase, it could be a wise move to put them on your menu and see if customers come in to check them out. Specialty tea may account for just a sliver of the global tea pie at this point, but the more var- ied the landscape is, the more interested consumers may be in becoming a part of the movement. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR welcomes letters to the editor at comments@freshcup.com. Letters must be 250 words or less. Authors must provide verifiable phone number and city and state of residence. Editor Chris Ryan TEA ALMANAC 2012 F r esh Cup MIKE STRUMPF