Stirring up debate: a tea bag, yesterday. Photograph: Tom Grill/Getty ImagesBritons aren’t drinking tea like they used to – sales are down by 22%. Is it time for the nation’s favourite beverage to take tips from its upmarket cousin?Tea is out of favour. By tea, I mean standard black tea from a teabag. With or without sugar, in a mug or taken away: comforting, habitual, biscuit optional. According to research by consumer analysts Mintel, sales of black tea have dropped by 22% over the past five years. In 2010 Britons bought 97m kg of tea, last year only 76m kg. Mintel thinks that figure will continue to decline. What's behind Britain's cooling enthusiasm?
Apparently the under-35s prefer green or herbal teas. Global warming's effect on prices may also have affected sales. (Maybe the tea campaigners and climate change groups can get together on this one.) And, the report says, people are prioritising their health and buying fewer biscuits. But of course, the biggest culprit is none of these things. The real reason for tea's decline is coffee.
Unlike tea, coffee is aspirational. It is a Rolex in a cardboard cup. A takeaway flat white/bulletproof says you have means and a lifestyle. Money to spend, time to wait, the taste to pay for something better. With its steely levers, clanking and hissing, the coffee machine hides its secrets in a puff of magic steam. But any fool can make a tea. It is the anti-coffee, a beverage so unaspirational that it is fondly known as a "builders'". I have nothing against builders " my dad was a builder " but even builders have gone off a cup of builders'; the last lot who came to my house asked for a cafetiere.
So the tea market is evolving, fancifying. Natasha Kelly, who last year opened Tiosk on east London's Broadway Market - a cafe selling only tea - calls it "the new tea". She sells 40 kinds. Each has a specific ratio of leaf to water, a timer on every pot that's brewing. Kelly calls her staff "tearistas" and warns against apologising to customers who stumble in looking for coffee. "We made a choice. Don't be sorry," she says. At launch, she expected English Breakfast to be the bestseller, but it has been outstripped by the Matcha latte and Chai latte, teas whose names have clearly been.
