Iced Tea Grows Up

ringing together tea purveyors with retailers, foodservice personnel, and other tea professionals to grow the business of the world’s second- most-consumed drink is the mission of the World Tea Expo, which celebrated its fifth year this past June in Atlanta.

Since its inception by George Jage, founder and president, the show has grown annually. This year’s attendance was 4,400, up from more than 4,100 last year, and vendors were up 40 percent. Attendees were able to peruse more than 31,000 square feet of exhibit space featuring 280 exhibitors from around the globe. Key countries of origin such as Nepal, India, Taiwan, Kenya, Sri Lanka, China, and Japan were represented.

Although there were attendees from the ranks of Fortune 500 companies, such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Nestlé, Jage says 80 percent represented small businesses, like independent tea rooms or coffee shops.

The first day of the expo was capped with a keynote speech by Phil Lempert, food editor for The Today Show and founder of the website supermarketguru.com. The expo also featured cooking with tea demonstrations where top chefs prepared recipes such as tea-infused rice pilaf.

ICED TEA SHAKE-OFF
A main event since the second expo has been the iced tea “shake-off.” Iced tea is given such prominence, says Jage, because “it is a very important overall part of the tea industry. An estimated 60 to 80 percent of tea drunk in the United States is consumed both iced and through foodservice channels.”

Iced tea is perceived as a good value for diners—many establishments offer unlimited refills—and offers a good profit margin for food and beverage outlets. “Iced tea has one of the highest profit margins of any beverage at a foodservice establishment,” says Jage. “It’s inexpensive to make and typically commands a price of $1.50 or $1.75. For a restaurant to give a free refill when it only costs them another penny or two is just good business.”

Although some think of iced tea as a summertime beverage, Jage claims it sells well year round. (He also notes, as people in the tropics have long observed, that drinking hot tea in the summer has a cooling effect.)

This year’s shake-off featured 60 competitors. The competition was divided into three main components: commercial, ready-to-drink (RTD), and freestyle. “The RTD category has seen double- digit growth for the last four years and is expected to see that kind of growth well beyond the end of the decade,” says Jage. The factors driving this trend are “number one, people are getting turned on to tea in the United States. They’re more aware of tea as a beverage and not just something you’d find in your grandma’s cupboard, and they realize tea’s health benefits. Plus, U.S. consumers want that on-the-go convenient packaging.” RTDs were judged for excellence in flavor, body, color, clarity, and packaging.

The RTD component of the shake-off was geared more to retailers and grocers, such as H-E-B and Whole Foods. Jage says of the winners, “These are companies producing high-quality products. It’s not a little bit of tea and a bunch of high-fructose corn syrup. These are products made and brewed with real tea and, in most cases, 100 percent additive- free, organic, and fair trade certified…These are the best of the best of 2007.”

The commercial foodservice competition focused on iced tea brewed in the back of the house, using machines by manufacturers such as Fetco or Curtis. These are commonly sold in premeasured filter pouches and brew one- to three-gallon batches of iced tea for foodservice establishments.

Lastly, the freestyle competition focused on creating handcrafted batches of iced tea that are more appropriate for small tea rooms, coffee shops, or small restaurants. These were not only judged for excellence in flavor and other qualities but on presentation. “You can charge a premium price for a premium tea,” says Jage, “and usually you’ll dress it up.”

There are hundreds of thousands of varieties, says Jage, which can be blended in infinite ways and combined with flavorings. Tea presentations, he says, are instrumental in educating tea drinkers that teas grown in different regions have different flavor profiles, like wines: “A tea from the south of India has a different profile from a tea grown in the Assam or Darjeeling region.” A properly presented cup of tea “lets you explore the world without leaving home.”

Most Americans grew up familiar with only black tea, but today’s tea trends appear to be linked to other colors. The biggest growth category this year is in “red tea” RTDs, made from rooibos, an herb grown in South Africa that is naturally caffeine free and high in antioxidants. (Jage notes that tea comes from the camellia sinensis plant. Rooibos is technically not a tea but is being marketed as red tea.)

White tea, a tea from the Fujian province of China made from buds and new leaves of the tea plant, hit its peak during the last show. As Jage notes, there’s a limited supply of white tea, “so, at some point, it’s going to hit a ceiling.”

Green tea has more “traction” and will continue to grow, predicts Jage, as research continues to reveal its benefits. Green tea is so famed for its antioxidant and other health benefits that it’s often incorporated into things that aren’t beverages, such as skin creams.

Tea has “incredible healthful” benefits, says Jage. It contains a chemical component, L-theanine, a natural mood relaxer that, coupled with tea’s mild caffeine, gives drinkers “a balance of alertness and relaxation.” That’s why tea has been used by Buddhist monks for centuries as part of their meditation rituals, Jage says.

Ultimately, tea is one of the healthiest beverages one can drink, Jage says, a sentiment echoed by Phil Lempert, who did his own research for the expo. In interviewing more than 2,300 people about tea consumption, Lempert discovered that 20 percent report drinking it for nutritional or health benefits.

Tea, the second-most-consumed beverage in the world after water, ranks fifth to eighth in the United States. “This means,” says Jage, “there’s “tremendous opportunity for tea to grow.”

Beth Rogers is a frequent contributor to HOTEL F&B.