The big TEAS
THE consumption of tea in the UK is staggering: according to Tea Council figures, we sip, slurp and gulp our way through 165 million cups every day, making tea the nation's favourite drink by far.
But it's staggering in the other sense of the word, too. The phenomenal appeal of coffee, a thriving soft drinks market buoyed up by health concerns, and the tired image of the strong brown British cuppa have conspired to eat away at the pre-eminence of tea. We apparently drink about half-a-cup less per day now than we did six years ago, says the Tea Council.
It's time for a makeover, and that's precisely how the tea industry has responded to the challenge. "The market is really quite dated," says Jan Spalding, food service marketing controller at Typhoo. "It's not particularly attractive to young people, for instance. People are looking for healthier alternatives, and are looking for more than an everyday experience."
Spalding is not alone in her conviction that there's plenty of room for innovation. Today the tea market not only offers ranges of herbal and green teas and fruit infusions, but speciality blends from named plantations around the world. An emphasis on freshness and quality is reflected in new ways of packaging, and Typhoo, Brooke Bond, Twinings, Tetley and Whittard have all opened stylish catering outlets in order to bring the "tea-drinking experience" to a new market outside the home. These are places to taste tea frappés, power teas and "chai" drinks, as well as the traditional brew.
Offering this choice is the key to widening the market and bringing in new customers, believes Susan Pepperell, marketing manager at Twinings Foodservice Division. Twinings' range includes specialities such as Gunpowder Green, Rose Pouchong, Keemun and Lady Grey, as well as perennial favourites such as Ceylon, Darjeeling, Assam and Earl Grey.
"Speciality tea sales have been growing year-on-year for a few years," says Pepperell, "and have been doing tremendously well in the food service sector. As customers become more discerning, it's important to offer the choice they demand."
Single-estate teas seek to attract customers with even more discerning tastes. Brooke Bond's first Ch'a teahouse in Brighton has a list of sophisticated gourmet teas: its Nagri Farm Darjeeling has a "green Muscatel grape flavour" while the Behali Assam is a "real mouth-twister with a prominent biscuity flavour".
"As with wine," explains Giles Hilton, chief buyer at Whittard, "single-estate teas have a lot of keen followers who want to know what certain estates produced each year. They care immensely about it."
Typhoo's speciality ranges also hail from single estates and are vacuum-packed at the plantation and presented in silver cartons. A description of the qualities of each tea and its source appear on the front of the pack, as if it were a bottle of wine. According to Spalding, the speciality range is particularly popular at Typhoo's T'fresh tea shop at the Millennium Dome. "Our single-estate teas are designed to appeal to younger premium customers," she explains. "The [packs] have a very contemporary design, very modern and trendy."
Need for change
Adrian Sandy, group brand manager for Tetley, acknowledges the need for change. "The old idea that you put tea in a carton and put it on the shelf, and that's tea and it won't change for the next 10 years, has changed," he says. "In terms of what consumers want, there is a general increase in sophistication and modernity. As people are becoming more fickle, you have to understand what the trends are that people are buying into, and also to keep updating what you are offering."
While 94% of the tea consumed in the UK is still the black, mainstream tea that most of us are familiar with, growing interest in health has contributed to the rising sales of green tea and fruit infusions. With 50% less caffeine than coffee and being high in antioxidants, green tea, in particular, is enjoying a sales surge. Figures from market research company Nielsen show that, while sales of speciality teas are growing by 5% and herbal teas by 10%, green teas are way ahead of the game with 400% growth last year.
"The whole tea and health message has started to be understood," says Bill Gorman, executive director of the Tea Council. "The image people have of green tea is that it is healthy, even though research has shown almost identical levels of antioxidants in both black and green tea. But there's a good story building up again - that tea is not just good for you in a crisis but is part of a positive, healthy lifestyle."
Green tea is offered by all the main producers in various forms. Twinings introduced three flavoured varieties last year. Typhoo offers the best of both worlds by blending green tea with black, making it compatible with milk and sugar, thus offering health benefits without forcing a change in habit. Brooke Bond's Tcha' range is a blend of green teas with added flavours such as grapefruit, mint and Oriental spice.
"The green tea phase is very much with us," explains Whittard's Hilton. "Sales have doubled each year for the past five years. It's healthy, it's good for you, and people launched into drinking it. It's the same with our flavoured teas. Certainly, the strong, brown, English tea image is the one this country is famous for, but it's not something that everyone likes. Our flavoured teas are light and have caught on."
Most producers now have substantial fruit and herbal infusions ranges, too. Twinings' exotic fruit selection was introduced last year with such flavours as mandarin, jasmine and lychee, ginseng and vanilla, cranberry, raspberry and elderflower. Typhoo's infusions claim uniqueness with the development of a "fruit delivery system" that allows concentrated fruit juice to be added to the tea blend for added taste.
Yet, despite all the innovations, Gorman is convinced that more can be done to boost the image of tea in the catering industry. We are still essentially a tea-drinking nation, consuming twice as much tea as we do coffee, according to the Tea Council.
"I'm staggered by the consumption of tea in the UK," says Gorman. "It's part of the fabric of life, but I'm not convinced that catering outlets think enough about tea and how it is served. There's still a strong possibility of getting a poor cup of tea in a restaurant or café, and not enough choice. The industry is not marketing this fabulous product as well as it could." n
