Recently, we've had a lot of calls from coffee shops, old and new, wanting to serve good tea at their locations. The most recent issue of Specialty Coffee Retailer (June 2009) noted that George Jage, our good friend who organizes the World Tea Expo each year,reported a marked increase in attendance by coffee shop owners who "realize tea is the next big thing." It went on to say that "he believes that in the next decade, coffee shop owners will bring tea mainstream on a mass scale." Well, we see it already.
We see two types of customers - one who already serves tea and wants to upgrade to loose leaf tea and to a better selection. The second includes the newbies - great in the coffee department but with no knowledge of tea who need to be trained from the ground up - what to carry, how many, how to serve, how to store. We have a system. We develop a customized tea list for each and carefully go over storage, serving and training for each location. That differs depending on the knowledge of the owner, the space they allocate to tea, whether table or counter service and, of course, their willingness to learn and adopt new things.
The next step in this evolution will be when these same coffee owners expand from English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Basic Green, Decaf and Flavored tea to Oolongs, Whites, Darjeelings, high quality Greens and interesting blends. Until then, we are very pleased to welcome them into the tea world, whatever their level of interest.
Very good bergamotte taste. Even as a decaf one of the better Earl Greys.