Has Britain fallen out of love with tea?

This is a wonderful British tradition that we have enjoyed for hundreds of years.

The answer to every crisis, a kinship ritual many wake up to when you welcome someone into your home and take the first drink.

“Like a cuppa?” Or even just “tea?” Is music to your ears, right?

Well, maybe not for everyone.

“I think there’s something to do with tea as an old man’s drink,” says 20-year-old Gilly Owen.

The student from London says he and his friends prefer water or diet soda drinks.

During this time Laiba does not drink tea at all.

“I never liked tea,” says the 20-year-old. “I just think it tastes really weird, like, really weird.”

This is in stark contrast to her parents who, she says, “really like” tea.

So is this a generational thing? As a nation, are we falling in love with tea?

Last week, one of Britain’s oldest tea firms, Typhoon Tea, collapsed after falling sales.

It has been a 120-year-old company. Rescued by vape maker SupremeWhose boss says he wants to develop new products under the brand.

Sandy Chadha told the BBC that the tea market was in decline but said Supreme would appeal to the younger generation who prefer “things like iced tea and health drinks”.

According to Nielsen IQ analysts, tea sales volume has fallen 4.3 percent compared to two years ago.

And less than half the nation, 48 percent, now drink tea at least once a day, according to a recent Mintel survey.

Katie Sonnen, a food researcher at Mintel, says traditional tea faces “fierce competition” from fruit, herbal, green and specialty black teas.

Dylan, a 21-year-old student, says he drinks tea, but not the usual builder’s tea – with milk ink – and prefers decaffeinated tea.

“I definitely drink less tea than my parents. I drink redbush tea and other less ‘teas,'” he says.

Shaima, 18, says she also prefers herbal tea, while most of her friends drink coffee. She says “there are too many drinks now” and she hasn’t even heard of typhoid.

Ms Soininen points to the big difference between tea and coffee sales.

“General tea sales were £377m in 2023, far outstripping instant coffee, [almost] £1bn,” she says.

Even the popularity of instant coffee is being challenged by the fast-growing ready-to-drink coffee market, she adds, which has seen sales more than double in the past five years.

Paulina Jones of Nelson IQ says that while people are “not falling in love with tea”, the landscape is changing with bubble tea, herbal teas, kombucha and energy drinks attracting younger generations. is

If this trend continues, he believes brands must reinvent themselves and figure out how to move into the ready-to-drink space. For example, the twins have started offering canned sparkling tea, while bottled kombucha appeals to students and young professionals who buy food deals, she says.

Supreme’s purchase of Typho includes two herbal tea brands, Heath & Heather and London Fruit & Herb Company, as well as specialty tea brand Ridgeways. Analyst Susanna Streeter from Hargreaves Lansdown believes Supreme will add them to the wellness brands it already owns.

Another challenge for black tea is that even for those for whom it is a staple, prices are rising and so they are buying in smaller quantities.

In 1974, the average family bought 68 grams – about 30 tea bags – of tea per person per week. By 2023, that had dropped to 19 grams — about 10 tea bags — per person, according to Government data.

“What is particularly telling about the potential long-term risk of black tea is that while all age groups have similar high consumption of tea early in the morning and with breakfast, younger age groups have higher consumption of tea. People are less likely to drink tea later in the day,” says Mintel’s Katie Sonnen.

She concludes with a stark warning for traditional tea makers – if younger generations continue these habits as they age, it will eventually “chill away” in market size.

And as a BBC reader commented on the story of the typhoon outbreak: “You know things are bad when the tea company goes bust in Britain.”