Everything starts with tea

Tea is slowly finding its way upmarket, with new methods of packaging and exclusive branding winning new customers for infusions. Amanda Marcus adds one for the pot.

While tea consumption isn't growing, it is slowly winning the image battle and finding new markets, according to Bill Gorman, chairman of the Tea Council. "There's a lot of noise around tea," he says, "with PG Tips and Tetley dropping their old advertising characters in favour of more contemporary messages, and people switching away from coffee to tea in the evenings, especially women who are concerned about caffeine."

And increasingly, tea is being wrapped in modern packaging and marketed by its estate, like a fine wine.

Style and trendiness are vital if tea is to claw back some of the market share it has lost to soft and carbonated drinks, as well as the promise of something new, especially for the younger market. "The tea bag was invented in 1908. It's time for a change," says James Roberts, joint managing director of tea and coffee company Peros. It recently launched a "contemporary teabag to jazz up tea", which looks more like a silver sugar-stick. The porous coating of the Ticolino Tea Stick means that it can be simply dipped into a cup and left to infuse.

Healthy choice
Also high on the list for increasing tea sales this year is the message that it is good for you. Tetley is spending £15m to promote the health benefits of drinking tea. Andrew Glen, commercial director for Tetley, explains: "Scientific evidence proving the benefits of tea is emerging all the time, and knowledge of this will only promote growth in tea sales. It's widely acknowledged that a cup of tea contains the same antioxidants as two apples, yet our research shows that 85% of the people in this country don't know that tea is good for them."

Today's consumers are becoming more adventurous and experimental with their breakfast requirements, according to Premier International Foods. While tea is a traditional favourite in the early morning, tea drinkers are increasingly demanding a more sophisticated breakfast menu, offering a greater selection of beverages. In response to the growing demand for more variety, quality and freshness from hot beverages, Premier's food service division is now marketing a selection of Typhoo Extra Fresh Speciality Teas and London Fruit and Herb infusions as "a contemporary breakfast tea selection to satisfy the palate of the 21st-century consumer".

Typhoo Extra Fresh Speciality Teas are described as bringing a modern and sophisticated approach to breakfast - again, designed to attract new, younger and more affluent consumers. Vacuum-packed on the estates where they are grown for flavour and freshness (another growing trend), the range includes English Breakfast, Millennium Blend, Earl Grey, Assam, Darjeeling and Ceylon.

The London Fruit & Herb Company's range of premium fruit-infusion teas, meanwhile, is aimed at the customer looking for an alternative to traditional tea and coffee with no artificial colourings or preservatives, and no added sugars or caffeine. (Fruit and herb infusions have been the fastest-growing sector of the tea market for more than five years and are still showing healthy growth today, according to Premier International Foods.)

Both ranges come in string and tag teabags, individually wrapped in foil sachets and packed in silver cartons.

Speciality tea is fast becoming the new latte and cappuccino, according to Tetley, and it can also command a premium price. As a result, Tetley has launched a new range of speciality teas which come individually packaged with drawstring teabags, in six varieties.

Although still a niche market, the organic food category remains buoyant and organic teas are growing by 23% a year, compared with the traditional tea market, which is declining by 3% a year (Taylor Nelson Sofres, The Consumer Response to Organics Report, April 2001).

In response to growing consumer interest in organic teas, and the need for something different, Clipper recently launched its organic range for food service, with flavours such as Organic Bourbon Vanilla, Organic Indian Chai and Organic Irish Breakfast.

Hot sticky stuff
As an alternative hot beverage to tea and coffee, hot chocolates are proliferating and some 10% of people regularly drink hot chocolate out of the home, according to Nestlé. The Holiday Inn chain is now adding Galaxy Instant Hot Chocolate Drink to its complimentary room offering, in individual sachets. Nichols Foods, which markets Galaxy, says that the offering is being made as part of the hotel's commitment to giving guests a good night's sleep. The drink was launched into the food service market last year and is proving immensely popular, according to sector marketing manager Tracey Yeadon.

Cadbury's Chocolatté has been created for caterers, making use of espresso machines. It can be served hot or cold, by adding cold milk to the powder if it is to be served cold, or steam from an espresso machine for hot (as for latte).

Cafédirect is also introducing hot chocolate to its range, to offer consumers more choice and to add another crop for its existing traders.

10 tips for perfect tea

• Use fresh, high-quality tea
• Keep it in airtight containers, away from strong smelling items
• Use fresh water - hot or reheated water gives a flat, stale taste
• Ensure the teapot is clean
• Tannin makes tea taste bitter; two dessertspoons of bicarbonate of soda and boiling water will remove staining in two or three hours
• Warm your pot
• Rinse the pot with hot water to ensure that the water stays at boiling point when it touches the tea
• Use the right amount of tea - one teaspoon per person plus one for the pot is a good guide
• Brewing time is critical - let the tea brew for 3-5 minutes. To alter the strength, adjust the amount of tea, not the brewing time
• Stir before serving and serve straight away; tea will taste stewed if left in the pot for more than 10 minutes; a tea cosy simply speeds up the stewing process.

Source: Twinings

Tea in the office

• The British office worker drinks an average of four cups of tea and one coffee at work, but one-fifth are "tea-aholics", needing to go for a cuppa at least once an hour
• It's not just about thirst - other motives were a change of scene, to alleviate stress or just to wake up
• Some 79% of office workers never vary their tea or coffee, but 27% of the offices surveyed now have herbal infusions and 13% have Earl Grey
• A cuppa can be the start of romance: 9% of office workers have gone to make tea at a certain time in the hope of bringing about an "accidental" meeting with someone they're attracted to.

Source: Twinings

The teaclinic cure

January saw the launch of a new Web site, www.teaclinic.co.uk, which is described as a contemporary tea consultancy, offering caterers ideas for boosting tea offerings and increasing sales of tea.

"Teaclinic has been set up purely for the caterer's benefit," says Caterplan tea brand manager Nicky Steel. "Its main mission is to help caterers to deliver a great cup of tea to their customers out of home - and ultimately increase their sales."

Supported by PG Tips, Scottish Blend, Lipton and Tchaé,Teaclinic has information, recipes and practical advice, and an on-line tea ordering service.

Visit www.teaclinic.co.uk or call 0800 389 3402 for more details.

A capital idea

It doesn't get much more niche than a tea for one town, but that's what the London Cuppa is - a brew for Londoners. Chris Wright, managing director of London Cuppa Ltd, explains: "There are seven waters within the M25, all horrible. The London market, at 13 million people, represents 25% of the UK population and we've got a tea specially selected and blended for them, which has been created to account for London water." Teabags are available in boxes of 80, or in a resealable polybag of 440.