Industry News at TeaChoice by Adagio Teas

Back for its second year, World Tea East is coming to Philadelphia on October 2-3 to bring east coast tea industry professionals together. Happy to say that Adagio Teas will be exhibiting again, with yours truly waiting to meet you at booth 201.

To those of us in the know, the rising crest of tea's popularity wave is no surprise, we've been watching the swell for years. Restaurants are both aiding and benefiting from the frenzy. Our largest beverage behemoth, Coca-Cola, reported that across all foodservice outlets tea sales were up a glaring 17 percent in 2010 alone. Mintel Menu Insights recently forecasted a 53 percent increase in iced tea beverages from 2008 to 2013. What soda wouldn't do for those numbers...

Diet fads come and go so quickly that many of them are gone before we've really even learned what they are. One diet that has remained constant at the forefront, however, is tea. Cultures the world over enjoy teas in a variety of different ways. Recently, the health benefits of tea have become a common topic of discussion, and many health companies are boasting a number of diet products that use tea as a main ingredient

Who knew that tea would be so popular at a coffee show? An estimated 10,000 people turned out for SCAA's Exposition this year and peppered Portland with coffee and tea aficionados, growers, roasters, blenders, teasmiths, and eager consumers. Coffee and beer flow plentifully in Portland, though the town may be more iconically known for its role in the US tea market. Among others, Tazo, Stash, Oregon Chai, Tao of Tea and more recently, Steven Smith Teamaker all had beginnings here.

With its promises of healthful rejuvenation, invigorating refreshment, focus-inducing properties, and clean sustainable energy boost, tea continues to flourish in the beverage category. Restaurants are reporting confidence and growth as well, ending the first quarter of 2012 with strongest same store sales in the last 4 years.

The symbiosis here can't be denied. The number of tea beverages offered in restaurants grew 11.5% in the few years prior while vertical integration in tea companies' supply chains as well as innovations in teabags and delivery systems, all enable restaurant purveyors to capture their part of this market with greater ease and confidence than ever before.

Maybe you're a oenophile, or a Q grader and an expert in your field, but you have customers expecting you to know as much about tea as you do about your other beverage passions. Here are a few quick tea facts to put you ahead of the tea curve, and a resource for a full scale (free!) tea education. Use it to train your staff, or your customers!

Adagio will be making appearances at these upcoming events, starting with the SCAA Exposition in Portland this week. Hope to see you at one or all of them!

The East Coast is getting a whole lotta tea love this month. Two major events are on the books to get your tea program ready for prime time. The Natural Products Expo East returns to Baltimore's Inner Harbor after a few years in Boston, September 21-24. World Tea East invites you to "Discover your special tea" in Philadelphia this weekend, September 9-10. If seeing, tasting, sniffing, learning, and talking tea is your bag, head to one of these events to get your fix, and then some.

Sales of the US non-alcoholic beverage industry grew 1.2% last year, showing a reversal of back to back years of decline. Fueling this is the thriving tea and ready-to-drink bottled tea market; tea sales in the US could approach $15 billion in 2012, up from $8.5 billion (foodservice share $2.8 billion) in 2009.