Demand for tea in the US is growing

Global Business

While China is by far the world’s largest consumer of tea, other countries such as Turkey, Ireland, and the United Kingdom are much bigger tea drinkers when factoring in per capita consumption. The United States meanwhile drinks far less tea, but more Americans are learning to get a taste for tea.

CCTV America’s Karina Huber reported this story from New York City.

  • The U.S. market for tea has grown from under two billion dollars in 1990 to roughly ten billion in 2013, according to the U.S. Tea Association.
  • At the same time coffee consumption hasn’t been growing much. To capitalize on the tea trend, Starbucks bought tea retailer Teavana in 2012 for 670 million dollars.
  • Black tea is America’s favorite, followed by fruit and herbal varieties. But the fastest growing teas are artisanal and green teas.
  • Americans consume over 40 percent more green tea than they did in 2000. Their medicinal properties seem to be a big part of what’s driving demand.
  • More than 85 percent of the tea consumed in the country is chilled

Tea consumption per capita

Source: Wikipedia using Faostat.


Chinese tea producers try to keep up with worldwide demand

With the growing popularity of tea in the United States, tea imports have soared 40 percent in just the last decade, and much of that is coming from China, where tea was first discovered thousands of years ago.

CCTV’s Guan Yang reported this story from southeast China’s Fujian province.

  • Tea was sent from China to Central Asia, Africa, and Middle East along the Silk Road nearly 800 years ago.
  • Chinese tea exporters now have to follow much stricter rules and meet rising quality standards. International customers want to know where their drinks come from.
  • The growth of loose leaf tea exports goes hand-in-hand with the emergence of global consumers who are health conscious and interested in Eastern culture. If coffee is the elixir of efficiency, perhaps tea is what encourages reflection and reprieve.
  • “Prosperity of tea exporting business is in pace with the economic strength of the country,” said Wang Wenli, chairman of the Bama Holding Group company.