Cuppa fans turn over a new leaf as tea returns

[Stevyn]

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Cuppa ... 6008977.jp


Cuppa fans turn over a new leaf as tea returns

Published Date: 24 January 2010
By David Leask

IT HELPED forge an empire, sustained us through the Blitz, and may be comforting us through the recession.
Sales of tea in the UK rose last year for the first time in four decades as economically depressed consumers remembered just how comforting a cuppa can be.

Tea experts believe young women are driving sales – up 3 per cent in 2009 – as they reject purse-emptying lattes, smoothies and bottled waters in favour of the brews their grannies enjoyed.

Old-fashioned tea salons are also enjoying a resurgence with at least three opening in Scotland in the last 18 months. They include Loopy Lorna's and Eteaket in Edinburgh as well as Brewhaha in Glasgow. Luxury hotels are also reopening the out-of-favour tea rooms that once catered to Edwardians.

William Gorman, chief executive of the UK Tea Council, said: "The popularity of tea is definitely back on the rise. We think tea has done really well in the recession, even though prices increased last year by about 10 per cent.

"Aside from the fact that the average cup of tea costs less than 5p - including the cost of boiling the kettle - we are finding a lot of people, especially, young women are interested in the health benefits".

Despite the growth of US-style coffee culture in the last decade, two-thirds of Britons still drink tea daily. Last year, the nation drank 165 million teas a day compared to 70 million coffees.

The trend has been picked up on by five-star hotels in Scotland, including the Old Course in St Andrews, the Sheraton and the Balmoral in Edinburgh and Turnberry in Ayrshire. The latter two are former railway hotels, which originally had tea salons to cater for Edwardian tourists.

Last year, Turnberry reopened its historic Grand Tea Lounge overlooking the island of Ailsa Craig, and was swamped by thirsty day-trippers and locals. The hotel hired Scotland's first tea sommelier to make sure its brews went with its snacks and has a wide range of premium teas from different countries. "We think tea should be treated like wine," a spokesman for the hotel said.

Gorman agreed. "We think tea is roughly where wine was 30 or 40 years ago. Suddenly we are discovering that there is more to tea than builder's brew."

In award-winning Loopy Lorna's, in Edinburgh's Morningside, Jeanette Coyle and Hannah Veitch, who were meeting up for a pot of English Breakfast, said that coffee culture was losing its appeal.

"For years I switched to coffee," Coyle, 60, said. "But now I am back on my tea, just like I was when I was young. Tea is just so much more refreshing and there is far less caffeine so you can enjoy much more of it."

Veitch, 74, is also back on the tea after a lifetime of coffee-drinking. "My dad was a baker and used to stew his tea so that the spoon would stand up in it," she said. "But now the teas have got much more flavour and variety."

The cafe's owner, Gaynor Salisbury, admitted that she was surprised at just how popular her tearoom – and others – had become. But she knows why.

"People are bored with chain coffee shops. Women, especially, like the idea of a nice pot, a nice tea cosy and a nice cup and saucer with real leaf tea and not dust in a bag."

The latest rise in tea sales follows four decades of decline as coffee consumption shot up in the UK. Some experts, Gorman included, believe some of the drop can be blamed on long-running marketing campaigns that gave the drink an antiquated image.

"The tea industry wasn't very innovative in its marketing," he said.

Coffee culture had also alienated the tea drinkers who still make up the bulk of the hot-drink buying British public, he added.

Few consumers are happy to pay around £2 for a teabag plunged in to a cardboard cup. "That", he said. "is like drinking fine wine out of a jam jar."