What you need to know to start the week.
- Canada Coffee & Tea Show
- World Tea East
Retail News
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Canadian consumer demand for coffee and tea continues to climb as evidenced by market research and the enthusiasm of attendees at the Canadian Coffee & Tea Show.
The show, managed by Fulcrum Media, attracted a big crowd Sunday to the Vancouver Convention Centre on the city’s spectacular waterfront. The venue shifts from Toronto to the West Coast annually. There were a dozen tea vendors among the 78 exhibitors on the show floor.
Sessions include “The Importance of Tea Training” and popular workshops like Le nez du thé (The Nose of Tea) and an advanced, hands-on tea blending class Sunday. The show continues today with a report on growth in the Canadian tea industry that Tea Biz will cover.
“Raise your Spirits” was a lively workshop and floor demonstration led by Shabnam Weber with Tea Emporium. The demonstration was sponsored by Spirits Canada. Shabnam taught the basics of mixology with samples for all in the crowd.
Specialty beverages in bars and restaurants made with tea are gaining popularity and are simple to make, she said.
Sandy McAlpine, president of the Canadian Coffee Association, said there are 8,500 coffee shops in the country of 34.8 million with 65 percent drinking coffee the previous day. Per capita consumption is among the highest in the world at 5.4 kilos (12 pounds) per year. About 50 percent of Canadians drink their coffee at home with 36.7 visiting retail shops for “mainstream coffee” and 6.3 percent drinking specialty coffee, with another 5 percent drinking their coffee at the office.
The food service mainstream coffee is critical to restaurant success and valued at $3.3 billion with specialty coffee exceeding $900 million in sales. Daily incidence of coffee drinking is 2 percent higher than tap water and well above the 36 percent who reported drinking tea the previous day.
McAlpine marveled at the rapid growth of single-serve coffee which had “virtually no role at home five years ago.” Single cup offerings now account for more than 40 percent of value and nearly 16 percent of volume with no sign of slowing, he said.
Michael Menashy had already signed a dozen subscribers to his Tea Sparrow online tea club by mid-afternoon. The Vancouver-based service currently offers 59 crowd-sourced teas narrowed from more than 780 submitted. The program launched last November and is approaching 500 members. Club members receive in the mail branded tea in several categories: green, black, rooibos and single-estate which is re-packaged. Club selections are from well-known suppliers such as Rishi Tea and TeaSpot. www.teasparrow.com
Key Café presents an interesting option for ancillary revenue. Clayton Brown explained that house owners can safely leave their house keys with local cafes via a secure online verification system useful to AirBnb vacationers and by local property managers. Café owners get a flat fee for making the keys available and benefit from increased traffic as individuals retrieve their keys. “The conversion is about 25 percent,” Brown explained, but the sample size is small (five cafes). Subscribers control access to their keys from a computer or mobile device and can let somebody into their home remotely from work or the beach.www.keycafe.com
Greg Lui with Black Tusk Trading in Vancouver displayed the company’s award-winning Majestic Earl Grey, an authentic Jasmine Pearl and his latest creation, “Cold Comfort” a blend of Echinacea and Japanese sensha, rosehip, lemon grass and hibiscus. www.blacktusk.biz
Coffee vendors predominate with all the major expresso equipment on display. Alfa Cappuccino, a distributor was demonstrating the Reneka R-80 Barissima 2-group multi-boiler espresso machine with with Aroma perfect and Micro Sieve and the latest in programmable features.
Models of the French-made machine sell for $19,000 to $24,000, according to sales representative Vladimir Martinov.
The Metropolitan Tea Company in Toronto is one of the largest tea suppliers in North America servicing 7,000 specialty retailers with a vast selection of teas and tea utensils and tea ware, according to Chris Clark. www.metrotea.com
Tea fans gathered for an evening cocktail party where one topic is always style and flavor favorites. Sameer Pruthee of Tea Affair noted his desire for daily Sensha and Sara Kadowaki of Sara’s Caddies, a supplier of fine Japanese tea, admitted a fondness for Indian chai.
Learn more at www.coffeeteashow.ca
World Tea East
ATLANTA, Ga. – The tea retail community is gathered at the Georgia Convention Center for the third World Tea East. The event, which continues through Tuesday, attracted several hundred attendees from as far as Brazil and South Africa, but most were regional retailers. There were 35 exhibitors.
George Jage, Group Director of F+W Media’s The Beverage Group, said that “World Tea East got off to a strong start despite the challenge of a NFL football game being held next door. With only 25% of the registered buyers braving the traffic and parking complications, exhibitors were pleased with the first day results,” he said.
Leading tea retailer, Teavana, had several people on the floor and engaging with many of the top suppliers, reports Jage.
The event is known for a quality educational program that includes a two-day New Business Boot Camp. Popular activities include tastings of the prize-winning tea from the North American Tea Championship.
Presenter Jane Pettigrew said academic and training sessions were well attended. Her class had 17. She reports vendors commented on “good interest and sales” and said that 30 attended the boot camp “some of whom have a great deal of knowledge and have travelled quite a bit to origins.”
Highlights include:
- A workshop by Jonas Feliciano and Elizabeth Friend, analysts at Euromonitor International, on global tea branding revealed over-saturation in the tea industry has led manufacturers to change the context in which tea is being consumed, rather than driving incremental tea demand. The trend means packaged tea sold in modern retail shops is growing at the expense of unpackaged tea sold in traditional markets. To differentiate premium tea from commodity, manufacturers stress functionality and convenience. They predicted growth of tea-themed shops as the next wave in modern chained cafés, using the third-place benefit to draw tea-drinkers out of their homes. The U.S. is now the world’s fourth in value at $2.1 billion, trailing China $9.5 billion; Japan $4.7 billion and Russia $3.7 billion.
- “Vino Teano & Tea Lagers” a session featuring wine- and beer-enhancing tea sachets led by Capital Teas founder Peter Martino and his colleague Nkaiso Akpabio, vice president of retail operations.
- Japanese matcha supplier AOI announced the company was awarded a Food Safety Certification (FSSC) 22000, a new global food safety standard for food manufacturing from the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), recognized by the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the European Union (CIAA). Learn more: http://www.aoimatcha.com
This year’s event was co-located with the Atlanta Foodservice Expo, a tradeshow that features kitchen equipment, technology systems, restaurant services and foodservice tools. The impact of the co-location with the Atlanta Foodservice Expo was highly apparent with a lot of chef coats in the aisles at World Tea East and in the NATC Winners Tasting Circle tasting the best teas of 2013,” according to Jage.
Tea Biz incorrectly reported that during the show Devan Shah, founder of International Tea Importers was awarded the Cha Jing Award for Lifetime Achievement. The Award ceremony was postponed until May 2014 where it will be held a World Tea Expo, Long Beach, Calif.
