Tea (24 page)

There were problems with these first tea bags, however—the most critical being the lack of space for the tea to expand, limiting the release of flavor. The solution was to use smaller leaves and pieces of tea, including fannings and dust, and for many years, tea made with tea bags was greatly inferior to the beverage derived from loose tea.

The situation was remedied, in part, in
1952
, when the Lipton tea company developed a four-sided bag that they patented as “Flo-thru.” Through the years, better bags have been developed, and a better grade of tea has been put into the bags, causing the tea bag to become more and more popular, not only in the United States but also in England. According to the U.K. Tea Council, in
2005
,
96
percent of the tea sold in England was in the form of tea bags. There are still purists, however, who swear by loose tea and scorn the tea bag.

The United States has also been credited with “discovering” iced, sweetened tea. Although this innovation is often attributed to Richard Bloechynden, a vendor at the
1904
St. Louis World's Fair, cold, sweetened tea had actually been drunk in America for many years prior to that. To give Mr. Bloechynden credit, however, his serving of iced tea at the World's Fair did much to popularize and promote this new way of drinking tea.

According to Linda Stradley, cookbook author and regional foods expert, recipes for serving cold tea date back to the early nineteenth century, when both English and American cookbooks offered recipes for cold green tea punch—green tea served with copious amounts of alcohol. One of the first printed recipes for serving cold, sweetened black tea was found in
Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book: What to Do and What Not to Do in Cooking
, published in
1884
. Mrs. Lincoln was the director of the Boston Cooking School, indicating that—contrary to popular belief—cold, sweet tea is not just a drink for Southerners.

Additional proof that iced tea predated the
1904
St. Louis World's Fair comes from a newspaper article in the
Nevada
Noticer
, dating to
1890
. The article described a meeting of ex-Confederate veterans who gathered in Nevada, Missouri, for a huge picnic that included “
11
,
000
pounds of beef—and
880
gallons of iced tea.”

Tea Today in the U.S.A.

It used to be so simple to order a cup of tea! For decades, American tea choices were limited to bags of Lipton or Tetley, but today, there are an endless number of categories, types, blends, and brands of tea to choose from. America has grown to love the taste of tea. In
2005
, the annual tea market in the United States was
6
.
8
billion dollars. This is expected to reach $
10
billion by
2010
.

Before World War II,
40
percent of all the tea drunk by Americans was green tea. The political climate during the war began to change this, however, when supplies of green tea from China and Japan were cut off, while supply lines from India and Ceylon remained open. Because India did—and still does—produce mostly black tea, Americans switched to drinking black. This trend has only recently begun to reverse again, as a result of much publicity over the health benefits of drinking green tea.

Although tea is definitely gaining in popularity in the United States, it only ranks sixth among the most-consumed beverages, after water, soft drinks, coffee, beer, and milk. The majority of the tea drunk by Americans (
85
percent) is in the form of iced tea, in spite of great increases in drinking traditional teas. In
1995
, South Carolina, home to the only commercially successful tea plantation in the United States, declared tea their official “State Hospitality Beverage”—and a tall glass of iced tea is the hospitality they have in mind.

Americans have always been attracted to convenience, which is why tea bags caught on so quickly. Convenience has now taken another leap forward with the ready-to-drink bottled teas that are gaining tremendous popularity today. Americans never adopted the notion of stopping in the middle of the afternoon for a “cuppa.” When it became possible, however, to grab a bottle or a can of tea and keep going, the American worker became more interested in the idea of drinking tea. Appealing to an increasingly health-conscious consumer, many major bottling companies have added both black and green tea or tea blends to the products they offer. Although the “goodies” found in tea, such as polyphenols and antioxidants, are greatly reduced in bottled tea, as compared to freshly brewed tea, these ready-to-drink teas are still much better for you than soft drinks.

Paralleling the situation in London in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, tea is also usually found at coffee shops. This trend began with chai, a blend of black tea, milk, and spices, and has continued to include a wide variety of teas, ranging from white to green to black and many different blends.

Tea's popularity can be witnessed in its increased presence in the media. From newspaper and magazine articles about the potential health benefits of tea to paid advertisements touting the delicious taste, tea seems to be everywhere, and the national awareness of tea is, undoubtedly, on the rise. Marketers use a “healthy lifestyle” approach today, capitalizing on the aura that sitting down with a cup of tea creates. Tea suggests something healthy and wholesome, something brand-new yet tinged with tradition, something slow and peaceful and mindful.

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves—slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.”

—Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk

THE BUYERS AND SELLERS

According to a July
2005
report for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, world tea production grew by
2
percent in
2004
, reaching a record
3
.
2
million tons.

Who drinks all the tea produced? India still tops the list as the country that consumes the most—a total of
300
,
000
tonnes (
330
,
690
U.S. tons) in
2004
. Turkey ranks second at
180
,
000
tonnes (
198
,
414
U.S. tons) for that year, followed by Russia with
171
,
000
tonnes (
188
,
493
U.S. tons). Per capita statistics may be more meaningful, however. Turkey, as mentioned in the introduction to this book, has the highest rate of consumption per person per year (mostly black tea), followed by the United Kingdom and Morocco.

In spite of a recent decline, India still produced the greatest amount of tea at
820
,
000
tonnes (
903
,
886
U.S. tons) in
2004
, the last year for which full statistics are available. (Because Indians consume so much of their own tea, they are not the world's greatest
exporter
of tea; Kenya currently holds that position.) Second in production in
2004
was China, which is poised to increase production drastically in the next few years. Kenya was third in production in
2004
with
328
,
000
tonnes (
361
,
554
U.S. tons), although persistent drought in
2005
allowed only a
1
.
2
percent increase in production—much lower than predicted. The drought is predicted to cause a sharp drop in production (anywhere from
16
percent according to the Kenya Tea Board to
25
percent according to other industry experts) in
2006
. Sri Lanka produced
309
,
000
tonnes (
340
,
612
U.S. tons) in
2004
, and Turkey produced
205
,
000
tonnes (
225
,
971
U.S. tons).

While worldwide tea production is up slightly and the popularity of tea in the United States and elsewhere is rising, the immediate outlook for the tea industry as a whole is not bright, because production is outpacing demand. In
1994
, the World Trade Organization predicted that the worldwide production of tea would exceed demand by
1
percent by the year
2005
. This did not happen, but possibly only because of the severe drought in Kenya, which had significant impact on world production.

Tea is grown in thirty-six tropical and subtropical countries. While newer tea-producing countries, such as Kenya, have been experiencing promising growth (unless hit by uncontrollable forces such as the
2005
drought), countries such as India, which have been producing tea for over a century, are experiencing declining productivity. The tea industry in India is in great need of restructuring, as old fields (some as old as
150
years) need replanting, the processing plants need modernizing, and the welfare structure for workers is in desperate need of upgrading.

The greatest competition to these tea-producing countries is the quickly emerging power of China, which, before the beginning of the twenty-first century, had held only a minor position in the world production of tea for over one hundred years. According to a
2005
New York Times
article, government subsidies in China helped increase tea exports by
18
.
9
percent in
2004
, putting them on track to surpass both Kenya and Sri Lanka in the near future. Many of the Chinese state-owned tea farms operated inefficiently, but as these have been taken over by private entrepreneurs with a keen interest in the bottom line, production has increased remarkably. If China retakes the lead in the world production of tea, the country will come full circle with regard to its place in the history of tea.