Wednesday July 11, 2007 | 8 comments
Marketing Daily reported that America’s #1 coffee retailer (who knew) has introduced freshly brewed iced teas to limited areas and plans to expand nationally in the fall.
I found their research quite informative. Results from IRI Scanners conclude that carbonated beverage sales are down 7.25%. This is great as perhaps the word is finally getting out about the hazards of drinking soda. Bottled water is definitely slowing as it slipped from 23.9% growth to only 11.3%. But the news for bottled iced tea is amazing. Drum roll please……..Iced tea sales have shot up 32.7% despite price increases.
I must say that I am encouraged by this information. The only down side is that most people put sugar in their iced tea. They even mentioned in their article that a special sweetened version will be available for those in the south. I shudder to think how much sugar goes into that brew.
I am not an iced tea drinker myself. I’m not even a room temperature tea drinker. I like my tea HOT. Once it slips below 100 degrees, I head to the kitchen to make another cup or pot. I must say, however, that by preparing smaller pots of tea each time, I typically drink it all up in one short sitting. The Asians keep their electric hot pots on all day so there’s always hot water patiently waiting to be used for that next pot of tea. I vote for hot pots in all homes around the world.
Remember, next time you’re brewing up some iced tea at home………leave the sugar OUT. If you must add something, squeeze in some lemon, lime or even a squeeze of an orange. If you happen upon a blood orange, it’s fabulous!
Some pretty good statistics here. I hope that a move from soda to tea is a sign of increased health consciousness. I know we have had a lot here in California, and there is more and more all the time. I am wondering, though, if your statistic about “The Asians” refers to 100% of the approximately 56 countries in that continent, and all of the about 4 billion people (more than 60% of the world’s population)? Forget the iced tea business, I’m gonna start selling electric hot pods to ‘The Asians’!! ;)
Interesting indeed. Good news for the industry as a whole when fast food chains get in on the action. You know what they say about rising tides and boats!
Also found it noteworthy that Dunkin Donuts expects to buy over a million lemons this year. In a prior life, I did some consulting for a large citrus company, and developments like this are sorely needed for citrus growers everywhere. One only hopes that this is not a passing fad that will rise and fall like Atkins.
I had friends over recently, visiting from Christ Church, New Zealand. They told me that “everyone” in that part of the world keeps an electric kettle on all the time as well. It seems that those of us in the U.S. are pretty slow to catch on.
Wow, people from Christchurch have their kettle on all the time? For what? Certainly NOT to make tea!
When we opened our teahouse in Christchurch about a year ago, we had no idea just how little people know about tea over here (or how hard it is to get them to try some).
But I DO know about some people over here that use their electric kettle a fair bit during the day, but that’s mainly to heat up water for the dishes (and possibly the odd bag of really cheap tea bags that are then made palatable with heaps of milk and sugar).
Yes Jo, that’s my understanding as well. Hot water that is available for any and all things.
Well Michelle, You did it again. Good article on good news for the lagging tea industry in the Ole U.S.A., that’s not lagging so much any more. What “goes around, comes back around”. I think “Tuesday with Norwood” will be speaking to that in the near future. “Save your infusers Tea Lovers the Leaves will rise again”….PJF
For we small specialty shops, it’s nice to have the big boys do our advertising for us! ;)
Seriously, they have to concentrate on their core business, but those of us whose core business IS tea are going to be tremendously helped by all of this. On July 4th, we had 400 rings (actual customer purchases) in our little 1000 sf shop! And not ONE tea bag!
Nikhil, on your comment re: passing fad. I very seriously doubt it. I would call it a trend. I think that specialty tea retailing, if someone gets out there and does for it what Starbucks did for specialty coffee/espresso, will force everyone to ‘up their game’, as it seems is already happening, even without that. Iced tea is a solid tradition in the U.S. and the article put it very well: “NPD analysts attribute iced tea’s booming popularity (which has been particularly notable among teens) not only to health and calming benefits, but to its ability to lend itself to seemingly endless varieties while at the same time being a familiar beverage.” I grew up on that AWFUL powdered instant iced tea and loved it. Now I doubt I could drink it at all. Once iced tea loyal Americans discover what REAL tea tastes like, they get very excited, as we have seen first-hand the last two months since we opened. What an incredible opportunity lays before specialty tea retailers.