Tea News: Tea Production in the US…again with the health garbage

[peter]

For those of you who’ve known me for a while, you might know that I am very much anti-health when it comes to the marketing of tea. This week, a new market research report was published by IBISWorld, which is a industry research firm based out of Southern California. Their press release announcing the publishing of the report has been making the rounds of every major news media outlet in the country.

The report looks fascinating, but I’ll have to give it a pass since getting my hands on it means parting ways with about $800 or more, but I’m disturbed that the approach to tea still lingers around the health aspects of it.

From the press release: 

Helping to drive the industry’s growth is an increased emphasis on healthy living and changing consumer dietary patterns. “Backed by the scientific community, tea manufacturers are marketing the various health benefits of tea consumption, especially tea’s effect on lowering cholesterol,” says IBISWorld industry analyst Agata Kaczanowska. In particular, herbal teas are experiencing substantial success on the market as consumers increasingly use them for at-home medicinal remedies. Additionally, as Americans have become more health-conscious, they have looked for alternatives to sugar-rich carbonated beverages.

That report probably runs a hundred pages or more, and we have to listen to more dribble about the health benefits of tea?

They also seem to present it all as something new, the American tea industry has been babbling on about healthy tea for over a decade thanks, in part, to the people at the Tea Association who started pushing it hard years ago – the legacy of it is that we are still haunted by it. I can’t prove it, and I wish I could, but the health marketing push was a good starter for tea, but isn’t powerful enough to carry tea forward and into the future. Sure, Americans care about health, but I don’t think we care that much – I know red meat is bad for me, but that isn’t going to stop me from eating steak.

Continuing to sell tea based on health holds it back and asks Americans and culture to change based on something they only care about more in theory than in practice (people still drink booze, smoke cigarettes, eat red meat, and drive without their seatbelts while talking on their cell phones). We care about health, but not enough to change our lives because some ad man says we should.

Evolving tea marketing off of the health message is going to take work and there are a lot of old-timers still in the industry making a lot of money off the health message, from the existing base of tea customers. I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat it here – the future of specialty tea in America will not come from tea customers, it will come from people who are not already drinking it, and until we find a way to talk to those people, the claimed exponential growth of the industry is still only going to be a crawl.

I’d love to get my hands on that report. There is no doubt in my mind that it is a fascinating read, but I hope that at some time the industry begins to think forward and evolve away from the message of health, because I think it’s hurting more than helping.

[Xavier]

Correct me if I am wrong but the problem is that even if tea is catching up in the USA, the Americans don’t believe they are tea drinkers (cf. your previous comments on women/men issues and tea).

Health was a plausible starting point to create the market, a marketing message that was appealing to the targeted customers (not Mr and Ms John Smith).

The problem is that now health is really hype in food marketing and they (the tea industry in general) will not want to change their message now that they are perfectly on target.

But since everyone is on the health issue, meaning more competitors (remember the Red Ocean thing?).

The answer to face this new era seems obvious but they might need lots of consultants to figure it out.

[Gingko]

*I didn’t know you are this anti-health :-p

I thought it was fine saying “Additionally, as
Americans have become more health-conscious, they have looked for
alternatives to sugar-rich carbonated beverages.” That’s quite true. I think there is a strong correlation between healthy life style, awareness of food health and the capability of detecting delicate complex tastes featured by tea.

I would use my husband as a bad example. Basically all green tea are “tasteless” to him. In my opinion, it’s because histaste buds have been numbed with high sugar food. After intentionally reducing sugar use for some days, I feel his taste buds have improved 🙂

But I have to admit I have my anti-health side as well. There were a few times after eating in a “healthy” restaurant or cafeteria, my comment was “Too damn healthy! I want my cholesterol!” 😀

[lazyliteratus]

@gingkoseto – We Americans like to “say” we’re health conscious…but that translates to: “Yeah, we’ll talk about it, but then we’ll go back to eating that fast food burger.” Personal hypocrisy is the American way.

@Peter – I completely agree with you. I’ll confess, I got started on tea because of health benefits; I was a wanton hypochondriac back in the day. But I’ve graduated. The rest of the country should to. It should be acknowledged that it’s a drink that tastes good and won’t *hurt* you in the process.

[Anonymous]

It’s going to burn a few fingers eventually. There was a study presented at an ACS conference a couple years ago that pointed out that most bottled tea contains so little tea that there aren’t enough antioxidants present to actually get the health benefits…

I think that maybe the temptation is because people are more willing to try something they initially find unpleasant if they believe it is good for them. I’m sure that there are some Pu-erh drinkers that were converted this way, and there are certainly kombucha drinkers out there that seem to have been introduced via the health route…

The United States once drank a significant amount of green tea when no health benefits of any sort were attributed to it… if it happened once before, surely it can happen again?

[bram]

@lazyliteratus – you mean you talk about it while eating a fast food burger.

I don’t mind much that the health story is part of the marketing, considering that the health story is part of tea.
However there are some cases that only the (supposed) health benefits are mentioned and those cases do irritate me.

I think there should be 2 important points in respect to using health claims:
2) It should be part of the story given, not the entire story. I should be able to skip it and only read the info about the tea. But that should be there. And yes I know of a large store-chain in my country that barely gives more than the health info on the packaging of their own teas.

1) The claims should be (scientifically proven) true and relevant.

I think the problem is less (but not absent) here in Europe than in the US. Since a couple of years we have laws against non-proven or irrelevant health claims on packaging and in commercials. So “now with 0% fat” on a candy that never contained fat at all is no longer allowed (yes, a real case). Of course there are ways to walk the boundary or around it. 

[Anonymous]

* @peter, I had no idea you did not like the idea of tea and health benefits.  I think that is very interesting.  There is a very big trend right now in America to get off of sugar drinks and heavy coffee drinks and switch over to tea.  Sugar itself and even caffeine are not particularly “bad” for you but too much of anything is not good.  I always try to do things in moderation.   I started drinking tea for health purposes.  I wanted to replace my sugar pop’s and drinks that stated they were healthy but had aspartame or other chemical products that can lead to serious health issues.  

However over the years I have also learned that you cannot believe everything you read and many times “experts” change their tune depending on the new “fad”.  It was once said that green tea had the highest amount of antioxidants but now “they” are saying black tea does.  I think most of this stuff should be taken in stride.  I have also learned over the years to actually love the taste of tea.  At first I drank the common tea bag from the box store but now I am particular about my tea because I actually enjoy the taste of it and am not just drinking it for “health” purposes.  Although, I have also found that there are tea’s out there that are not particularly good for you. There are companies that process the tea with sprays and who knows what else.  I think there are many tea’s out there that are not even tea.  

Health and what I put into my body is very important to me.  It is why I live on a farm and raise my own food.  I don’t trust the food industry.  I eat red meat but raise it myself or buy it from a local farmer.  My tea is also important to me.  I care about the process of it.  I actually just got a account with an organic restaurant that wants to get away from processed items and will now serve my whole leaf tea that has no preservatives. We are being carried in health food stores and also picking up more and more healthy living restaurants that only serve local farm raised food.  Tea is the same thing.  Just because your drinking tea does not particularly mean it is healthy.  It depends on the tea your drinking and where the tea came from.  

Tea has been used for centuries for medicinal purposes.  This is not a new thing.  America is just a little slow on the uptake and tends to be very consumed with Western medicine.  I think it is a good thing that people are trying to get away from processed food and  drink and try to go to a more “natural” lifestyle.  But I also agree that we need to be careful on “health claims”. 

[Author]

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