While tea may be one of the old­est and most famil­iar bev­er­ages in the world, it’s more pop­u­lar than ever. Thus, it’s imper­a­tive that retail­ers step up their tea offer­ings, to reach new cus­tomers and increase prof­its.
Here’s a look at some of the key devel­op­ments in tea.

Green tea
While 90 per­cent of tea con­sumed in the U.S. is black, green tea con­sump­tion has dou­bled in recent years to about 10 per­cent, accord­ing to the Tea Association of the USA. Awareness of the health and well­ness attrib­utes of tea accounts for its pop­u­lar­ity with Millennials and Baby Boomers alike. Green tea’s antioxidant-rich rep­u­ta­tion makes it a key ingre­di­ent in juice blends and func­tional foods. Matcha smooth­ies and the addi­tion of black and green tea to baked goods is grow­ing, and cof­fee­houses are expe­ri­enc­ing great sales results with sweet tea and fla­vored tea lattes, both hot and cold.

Ready-to-drink teas
Ready-to-drink teas have found their way into super­mar­kets in a greater vari­ety than ever before, and sales of tea in con­ve­nient and widely avail­able bot­tles and cans out­paced soft drinks in 2008. In fact, sales of U.S. bot­tled RTD tea increased 29 per­cent to $118 mil­lion in Mexico, and Coca Cola is sell­ing green-tea fla­vored Sprite in China. Specialty brands such as Coca-Cola’s Honest Tea are now widely avail­able from large dis­trib­u­tors. Smaller regional tea com­pa­nies like Numi Tea now bot­tle their teas, and large man­u­fac­tur­ers, like Japanese bev­er­age giant Ito En, are import­ing a new line of TEAS tea in three tiers of sweet­ness. Every grab-and-go cooler in cof­fee­houses should pro­vide the lunch crowd with a selec­tion of these RTD teas.

Specialty iced tea
Iced tea is also expe­ri­enc­ing a surge. The National Restaurant Association annu­ally sur­veys pro­fes­sional chefs on “What’s Hot.” This year, 57 per­cent of the 1,500 chefs named spe­cialty iced tea a hot trend. Flavored teas, southern-style sweet tea, tea lattes and Thai teas are all “on-trend.” Thirty five per­cent of the chefs also pre­dicted increased demand for green tea, served hot or cold. Commercial serv­ings of iced tea exceeded 5.4 bil­lion in the year end­ing December 2010; a three per­cent increase com­pared to 2009, accord­ing to The NPD Group, a mar­ket research firm in Port Washington, N.Y.

Sexy, mod­ern tea wares
Tea is very pop­u­lar with a new gen­er­a­tion and, thus, hip tea ware and uten­sils are a nat­ural exten­sion. A younger demo­graphic responds to tea prod­ucts and gifts that are mod­ern, BPA free, user-friendly and cleanly designed. Retailers will ben­e­fit from mak­ing these gift­ware items avail­able at their shop. Consider using wares like Moroccan ceram­ics, for exam­ple, for in-store ser­vice. The trend is to use origin-influenced tea wares that com­pli­ment a spe­cific tea on your menu.

Organic tea, sus­tain­abil­ity and health
The U.S. is now the world’s largest mar­ket for organ­ics and the largest con­sumer of Fair Trade goods. Every major super­mar­ket chain, includ­ing Wal-Mart, now sells organic foods. Naturally, with the empha­sis on global con­nec­tiv­ity and an influx of younger peo­ple drink­ing tea, there is a strength­en­ing demand for organic and sus­tain­able tea products.

We will surely see more nat­ural prod­uct retail­ers sell­ing private-label organic teas, and most big retail­ers already have their organic pri­vate label lines and teas will be included. This is an oppor­tu­nity for retail­ers to add organic tea to the mix and reach a large buy­ing audi­ence that seeks these products.

There is also a rush of new prod­ucts for­mu­lated to enhance tea’s healthy rep­u­ta­tion. Large man­u­fac­tur­ers such as Hain Celestial and Bigelow Tea have added pro­bi­otics, omega-3s, gin­seng, guarana, gin­ger and more to bot­tled and pack­aged tea. Natural prod­uct retail­ers are sell­ing private-label tea, herbals and organic tea. Retailers includ­ing Safeway and Kroger added organic tea to their store-band mix to reach a large buy­ing audi­ence seek­ing these products.

Celebrity tea lines
Actor Chris Noth, the Sex & the City star and for­mer New York club boss, launched a green tea line in April, and celebri­ties from Donald J. Trump to Lady Gaga and Padma Lakshmi have their own tea lines or are plan­ning to launch tea lines, which show­cases tea’s height­ened stand­ing in the mar­ket­place. The pop­u­lar­ity of these lines is help­ing to intro­duce tea to new audi­ences. Celebrities clearly see the value in get­ting in the tea business.

Men and Millennials
The fastest grow­ing demo­graphic of atten­dees at World Tea Expo, the annual event for the tea indus­try, is between the ages of 18 to 28, and they are men, accord­ing to data from the Expo’s 2008, 2009 and 2010 events. The indus­try is not only see­ing a younger gen­er­a­tion of tea pro­fes­sion­als at its events, but it’s see­ing tea com­pa­nies and retail­ers mar­ket to men and Millennials with spe­cific prod­ucts.
Young tea drinkers reject the rit­u­als of their grand­par­ents, choos­ing more casual set­tings to imbibe. They are glob­ally con­nected, and attracted to teas’ exotic nature. They are avid researchers who drink a diver­sity of teas from many regions.
“The early adop­tion of tea as a bev­er­age of choice by Millennials indi­cates longevity for the cat­e­gory,” says Annis Lyles, vice pres­i­dent of media and inter­ac­tive for Coca-Cola, North America.

From “spe­cialty” to “pre­mium”
The tea indus­try used to group all of its whole-leaf tea into a cat­e­gory called “spe­cialty.” Tea pro­fes­sion­als, man­u­fac­tur­ers and chefs have fur­ther cat­e­go­rized spe­cialty as a group of fla­vored bev­er­ages such as tea lattes, Thai tea, southern-style sweet tea and tea­puc­ci­nos. The term “pre­mium” refers to high-quality tea ver­sus tea that is sim­ply whole leaf or scented. Essentially, as the palates of tea drinkers evolve, so does the nomen­cla­ture. While sales of spe­cialty tea remain a small por­tion of the U.S. mar­ket, this fast-growing seg­ment is dri­ving inno­va­tion and the growth of spe­cialty retail ven­tures. Like cheese shops and wine mer­chants, tea retail­ers fea­tur­ing 100 to 150 selec­tions are appear­ing in mar­kets with pop­u­la­tions of 200,000 and greater and thriv­ing in large high-rent regional malls.

Innovative tea pack­ag­ing
Quality tea is always the first pri­or­ity, but con­sumers also appre­ci­ate unique pack­ag­ing, espe­cially if the tea is meant to be a gift. Companies like Tea Forte offer a bril­liant exam­ple of pack­ag­ing inno­va­tion. Right now, inno­v­a­tive, made-from-the-earth and func­tional tea prod­uct pack­ag­ing is “in.” As an exam­ple, when Ajiri Tea launched at 2010 World Tea Expo, their hand-made tea pack­ag­ing from women in Kenya, made out of banana leaves, was a huge hit. Rather than plac­ing it in a typ­i­cal tin, they com­mu­ni­cated the teas’ soul through the pack­ag­ing.
Also, Tetulia chose a com­postable can­is­ter that breaks down nat­u­rally in 150 days and holds 16 biodegrad­able, silken pyra­mid tea bags. “We wanted some­thing that was kind to our earth… but some­times it can be chal­leng­ing to have an earth-friendly yet attrac­tive pack­age. We think we mar­ried the two just per­fectly,” says Director of Marketing Chris Olsen.

An empha­sis on tea ori­gins
Attendees at 2011 World Tea Expo can also expect a greater empha­sis placed on tra­di­tional tea cus­toms from dif­fer­ent coun­tries. We’re see­ing the indus­try and con­sumers talk­ing more about the ori­gin of the tea they are drink­ing, the process it took to get here and the cul­tural cus­toms sur­round­ing it.

Tea and restau­rants
Tea is mak­ing giant strides in the culi­nary and food­ser­vice world in 2011. The indus­try is see­ing restau­rants offer pre­mium tea drinks on the menu, and it’s see­ing inno­v­a­tive chefs present some excit­ing, fla­vor­ful dishes that incor­po­rate tea. In fact, one well-known restau­rant that’s tea-inspired is Charlie Palmer’s AAA Four Diamond and Michelin One Star restau­rant Aureole, where Executive Chef Vincent Pouessel and Pastry Chef Megan Romano cre­ate both savory and dessert dishes that fea­ture tea. The fine din­ing estab­lish­ment is at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nev., and it uses tea in sev­eral items. Some of the restaurant’s high­lights include: Green Tea Smoked Moulard Duck Breast with truf­fle parsnip purée, Glazed Fava Beans and nat­ural duck jus; Tea-infused Chocolate Ganache with moun­tain berry Chambord and Eros Peppermint with a blood orange and vanilla bean scent; an Eros tea-infused Concord Grape Pound Cake; and a honey-orange pekoe-infused Crème Brulee. The restau­rant is fea­tured at World Tea Expo in a Cooking with Tea Workshop.

Certainly, 2011 is an excit­ing time for the tea indus­try, and this year’s World Tea Expo, June 24 – 26 in Las Vegas, will most cer­tainly high­light all the major tea trends.

Kim Jage is exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of World Tea Media, orga­niz­ers of World Tea Expo, World Tea East, World Tea News and the North American Tea Championship.