The Tea Boom – did it already happen? is it due to happen?

[Anonymous]

This topic was inspired by @AmazonV‘s blog: 

http://amazonv.teatra.de/2011/09/29/teavana/

I think the boom that  @AmazonV was talking about was “THE BOOM”. At some point there was a switch from calisthenics, Phen Phen, and coke in the 80′s to yoga, organic food, and tea in the 90′s and beyond.

The fact is, Americans still set worldwide consumer trends. It sounds Jingoistic, but Americans would have to adopt tea in a big way for a worldwide tea boom to come about.

We sealed our fate as coffee drinkers when we threw all that tea into Boston Harbor and settled the wild west on horseback with six shooters and coffee boilers.

Furthermore, I don’t see Americans adopting tea in a big way unless they start selling caffeine-fortified tea in a Starbucks type setting. The fact is, most people want to GO! GO! GO! from their caffeinated beverages, and Starbucks delivers. For a massive “tea boom” to take place, coffee would have to be trading at obscene prices due to world climate change, world war, or something crazy. Even then, I think people will probably opt for one of those 5-hour energy drinks, a Red Bull, or a 22-ounce can of Monster before switching to tea.

[peter]

I like that you put that chart there @xavier. It really made me think about this. 

I do personally believe that the US is a very young market for tea. To put it in perspective, I live in a region of 2.5 million people and we have two tea shops (a Teavana and an independent shop that barely registers because their prices are so high and their tea offerings are boring).

If I had to put the US on that curve, I would put us somewhere between Early Adopters and Early Majority–we (the connected online tea community) are very much Early Adopters, but there are a significant number of tea people out there who call self-refer as tea drinkers who would never think of being part of the online tea community. They drink tea, but they are fresh.

I say we are there and this article at Seven Cups seems to support it. After all, I would not have formulated and started Tea Trade if I wasn’t sure we are in a pre-boom era…;) I’m intentionally positioning Tea Trade to both ride and help create the wave, either way, I intend to be part of it.

The boom is not going to come from growth, it will come from innovation. This innovation might come in the form of logistics, supply or distribution. It may even come from marketing. Can you imagine what would happen if Lipton started to push a serious line of teas. It wouldn’t take more than ten good tea products in that line to change the American perspective on tea. They already own the retail space in tea, all they have to do is upgrade it to better products. That would be real innovation, the kind that would shift demand upward because it would appear that luxury tea products are now available in the grocery store.

I’ve been saying this since the day we started Leafbox Tea back in the fall of 2009 – solidifying grocery store distribution of decent-to-good loose leaf tea products is going to be the key that starts this wave, the established firms may not do it because they are so heavily invested in tea bags and their status quo. It will be a new firm with money and connections or a corporation with entrepreneurial muscle, devoted to that cause and market which is going to make it happen.

[Anonymous]

solidifying grocery store distribution of decent-to-good loose leaf tea products is going to be the key that starts this wave – Tea Trade Peter 

Nice quote! I think you may be right about this and am optimistically hoping for a “Tea Boom”. I feel like a company like Tiesta Tea would be more likely to find shelf space in American grocery stores. Their focus on the effect of the tea on the customer rather than type or origin reminds me very much of SoBe’s business model, and they’re still selling us their overpriced juices – although the bottle has changed from glass to plastic. I’d like to see Lipton buy out Tiesta Tea, market the heck out of it, and attack the grocery stores in a big way.

I’d consider it a benevolent takeover.

[Author]

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