Everything I know about tea, I learned. Deep, right? I began my tea journey with Bigelow’s Constant Comment. No, I’m not getting on my “bagged tea tastes like crap” high horse here. I drank it for years and was happy as could be. I didn’t one day put a bag in my cup and think, “I should switch to loose leaf.” It was an evolution, one that included a great deal of exploring and education.
While trolling through my overwhelming number of chat board updates, I came across a note regarding Tazo / Starbucks opening their first shop in University Village, Washington. It’s the hot news in the tea world right now and I love to see what people are saying. However, I was really taken aback by one person’s take on the situation: “When an industry has to educate its customers to enjoy the product you know it’s in trouble.” Wait, what? Did this guy just say that? In public? For others to read?
Let’s start with the fact that wine has seen tremendous growth over the past 30-something years. A large portion of this growth is due to the immense amount of education that has been generated by wine producers. Those silly lushes got it all wrong 30 years ago when they decided to start doling out information about the quality of the grapes, growing regions, processing and flavor components, ways to drink it, and different drinking vessels. Their reckless approach to education now allows them to captain a yacht worth $20 billion a year. Oh, and that’s just California’s wine growers. The Wine Institute recently posted a study presented by San Francisco State providing an analysis of the U.S. wine market. One interesting quote from the study reads: “As consumers gain more experience, they may not necessarily purchase more expensive wine. Indeed, one of the advantages of knowledge is the ability to spot a bargain and the confidence to experiment – or at least resist the pitch that a wine must be good because it is costly.” Note to self: Why would the “tea sheeples” want to know any more than if it’s expensive, it must be good?
Let’s talk coffee. We could start with the fact that education has created an interest in coffee in the United States that is unparalleled in any other country. That scene in which people run from one Starbucks to the other to escape the giant gingerbread man in Shrek was not accidental. According to Charles Cain, VP of Tazo Merchant and Operations, in 1991, there were 1,650 coffee shops and by 2012, that number had grown to over 25,000. Thanks to coffee education and awareness, the United States’ fair trade movement could be hoisted onto the backs of coffee growers. Coffee companies covering 50 states have begun focusing on getting that financial power back into the hands of those who grow the beans and allowing them to make changes in their own communities. Note to self: Why would the “tea sheeples” care about where and how their tea gets into the cup?
All this coffee and wine talk makes me thirsty, so I’m diving into tea. Earlier I mentioned my love of Constant Comment. I haven’t had it in years because I have a new love in my life named Oolong. Oolongs are complex. They’re fragrant. They’re freaking awesome. But I didn’t just pick up an oolong and start drinking. I developed this palate via green, black, and white teas. Now I am slowly warming up (see what I did there) to pu-erhs. My tastebuds have expanded, and will continue to grow, as I expand my knowledge of the tea world. The availability of good tea is expanding too! Consumption of tea in all of its forms is expected to surpass coffee consumption by 2017. Loose-leaf tea demand is on the rise for the 19th consecutive year, a trend that portends well for the tea industry as a whole. Note to self: American “tea sheeples” only like flavored, sugary black teas, so only offer those.
Tea education is vital and it’s an exciting time to be a tea drinker. For those who have an interest, it’s important to work with companies who approach tea in a responsible and honest way. Tea drinkers need to know whether the pickers, the growers, and even the environment are being wronged in order for them to enjoy those five grams of tea. We need to know more about the cultures and conditions in which the leaf was raised in order to truly appreciate its trek around the world and into your cup. This knowledge will pour through countless outlets (books, blogs, websites, and festivals) and will continue to spur the popularity of tea over the next 20 years in the United States!
Editor’s note: this post was first published on 6 July 2012. Still relevant, no?
EXCELLENT points indeed. Thanks for clearing up some troubling concepts. I’m with you. The more education the better. I too have slowly expanded my palate to enjoy a larger variety of teas and tastes. Oh what will the future hold? It looks quite rosy for tea!
What people don’t know, people won’t drink. Except for those experimenters of course.
If people are to choose they have to know their options the better picture they have the better choice they can make.
This means they must have correct/useful information and shown that something exists at al. Oh wait, that is what we call education.
There is not much that sells itself, at least not to large groups. And even those require minimal advertisement (=part of education, though often misleading).
Great Article and excellent points. I was involved in that conversation and was just as perplexed as you when I read that education was the beginning of the end. Having spent a great deal of my life teaching people about wine, I thought to myself, if that were true, I should have been out of work years ago! You can’t help but educate when you sell tea!
Great points made and I find myself nodding my head every other paragraph.The only real disagreement I have with you is that tea education is not only needed in the United States but all over the world, even including tea producing countries such as China and India.
Our principle at Peony Tea S. is to help others enjoy their cup- from brewing, to storage and other information regarding production methods, place of origin etc because we believe that when we help a drinker maximize his or her enjoyment of tea, it increases the probability that
i) He or she becomes a recurring long term customer
ii) He or she becomes a channel of advertising- teavangelism, I like to call it
Unfortunately it must be said that there is so much misinformation on the web- as offensive as it may sound- often one should question are the ‘tea educators’ educated or the gurus truly authoritative.
On many online forums, the amount of misinformation being delivered is truly frightful, some by people who are
in the trade. Before we can move forward, I feel there might be a need to take a few steps backwards and ‘unlearn’ some of the misinformation parroted down the years.
Four years open in suburban, chain-filled Southern California. My iced, sweetened black tea drinkers (80% of U.S. sales of tea) are now drinking senchas, Pouchongs, and even Pu-erh. How did it happen?
Education. Sampling. And soon people are asking themselves about options. It’s exciting to be in this ‘pioneering’ stage of specialty tea in the U.S.!
Derek, I couldn’t agree more. I find myself constantly flipping between conflicting sources because of the massive amounts of bad info. I have found quite a few sources that I can bank on having the right stuff and I try my hardest to ensure that I am putting out accurate information that can be backed up with facts. I will just keep on trucking…
This is a GREAT post! I hope you not mind. I published an excerpt on the site and linked back to your own blog for people to read the full version. Thanks for your advice.
Your blog really great. Thanks for sharing this informative blog.
Naomi, great article… also, thank you for putting this in very eloquent, concise points… this is truly what we are aiming to do with the US League of Tea Growers and at FiLoLi Tea Farm… We need more education… Hopefully in 20 years, I will have you out on my “tea yacht” LOL
Excellent points Naomi. Our company was founded on the principle of educating people about tea. We take great pleasure in each and every interaction with our customers where we are able to make the tea experience just that much better for them.
Naomi, Thanks for an awesome article. Every Thursday I attend a meeting at a local restaurant during the wee hours of the morning. I order tea. Bagged tea. Earl Grey bagged tea. Sometimes they have Tazo, sometimes Mighty Leaf, sometimes Bigelow. I love it. I order more hot water after two cups. Thanks for validating my secret bag habit.