We know that water is the most consumed beverage in the world. Can’t live long without it. But tea? Can tea be that popular?
Surely the Brits have the market cornered on that lovely beverage sometimes sweetened with sugar, more often infused with lemon or milk. When I lived in Europe in the ‘60s and traveled to Britain, it was a surprising spectacle to see the British pull their cars to the curb at 3 p.m. sharp each afternoon and uncork a thermos of hot tea. That ritual has always stayed with me.
When I traveled back to England 10 years ago, the tea cozy was present at every breakfast in private homes, hotel dining rooms and restaurants. And when I toured Buckingham Palace, there was the shiny Sterling tea set surrounded by dainty floral cups just waiting supposedly for Her Majesty to ring the bell for tea.
In a lovely “museum store” in the Queen’s back yard, there were thousands of tins of tea with Her Majesty’s crest and pictures of the Royal Family. There were colorful tea cozies, silver tea leaf strainers, tea napkins and honey…lots and lots of jars of the Queen’s signature royal honey produced in the Queen’s royal bee hives. Everything was being bought up in a frenzie by tourists who had just trekked the palace and seen the queen’s clothing exhibit which spanned from the time of her coronation in 1953 until 2006.
So, I was surprised to learn from an recent article in tealover.com that Britain actually comes in eighth in line as queen of the tea drinking nations behind China which pours 1.6 million tons of tea a year (a thousand times more than the UK). India follows with 1 million tons, then Turkey (0.23M), Russia (0.16M), the US and Pakistan (0.13M), and Japan (0.121M).
There you have it: Americans drink more tea than the Brits. I would have sworn we were a nation of coffee drinkers. Actually, 54% of Americans over the age of 18 drink coffee every day—that’s 11,947,500 pounds of coffee a year, but it doesn’t come close to the .13M tons of tea consumed annually.
Just an aside: American women order lattes (22%), followed by regular coffee (19%) with cappuccinos coming in last at 12%. Men coffee drinkers prefer their coffee strong and black (30%) followed by espresso (14%).
But, back to tea.
Tealover.com has some interesting things to say about the comforting brew. Take a look:
3% is roughly the amount of caffeine contained in tea. According to the variety, it corresponds to a quantity ranging between 30 and 90 milligrams to a cup of approximately 250 ml. Black tea is the variety containing most caffeine: about 22-28 milligrams to 1 gram. Bear in mind that one cup of Italian espresso coffee contains between 47 and 75 milligrams of caffeine.
6 main tea varieties are to be found worldwide. In the case of green tea, heat is used to prevent the fermentation process as soon as the leaves are harvested in order to preserve its green colour and natural properties. On the contrary, black tea is left to oxidize, which confers a more intense fragrance but partially impairs its properties. Then, there is “oolong” (semi-fermented) tea, white tea (processed to a lesser extent), yellow tea (very rare) and fermented tea.
30% is the average polyphenol content of tea. Polyphenols are among the most important substances contained in this beverage, and account for most of its natural properties. First and foremost, astringency, the only property actually confirmed by laboratory experiments. Besides, if we exclude caffeine and polyphenols, tea is a beverage with very few nutritional substances, apart from a negligible quantity of manganese (0.5 milligrams per cup).
1907 was the year when the American tea merchant, Thomas Sullivan, started to distribute dried leaves in little bags of Chinese silk tied with a long thread. The first customers found it very convenient to be able to leave the bag in boiling water and “refill” it with fresh leaves. In actual fact, tea bags only became widespread after the Second World War: since tea was rationed during the conflict, consumers got used to using it in sachets.
30% is the average polyphenol content of tea. Polyphenols are among the most important substances contained in this beverage, and account for most of its natural properties. First and foremost, astringency, the only property actually confirmed by laboratory experiments. Besides, if we exclude caffeine and polyphenols, tea is a beverage with very few nutritional substances, apart from a negligible quantity of manganese (0.5 milligrams per cup).
416,000 tons of tea are exported by Kenya. That is to say, practically all the tea it produces. The runner up in this particular respect is China with 330,000 tons, which shows that this country drinks much of the tea it produces. The third place goes to Sri Lanka, with 311000 tons of tea exported.
1,930,000 tons of tea enable India to top the charts of the world’s biggest producers. This country is followed at a great distance by China (1.2 million) and Kenya (0.44 million). Asia is the continent that produces most tea of all: with an overall output of around 4 million tons.
3,200,000 tons of black tea are produced worldwide every year. This is the most widespread variety of tea. In 2023, it is expected to reach the 4 million mark. On the whole, a modest increase compared to that of green tea which is expected to soar from just over one million tons to more than three million tons by 2023. The supremacy of black tea is being challenged.
According to teausa.com, In 2015, more than 69% of hot tea purchased in the U.S. was bagged tea. Herbal teas were at about 30% and loose teas made up just under 1% of purchases. Tea Bags, as measured through Grocery and DMM, continue to lag with little or no growth. Private Brands are growing in both volume and dollars. Total category is growing in dollar terms, but lagging in volume. Loose tea continues to grow in both dollars and units.
At GreenAcres, Honest Tea is or biggest volume seller in bottled tea; Celestial Seasoning in boxed tea. And, if herbal teas are your thing, you’re in luck this month as we’re offering a 2/$5 sale of Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime and Morning Thunder teas. See the ad in our March newsletter.