Tea & Twentysomethings
A Younger Generation Turns a New Leaf
By Nick Obourn
Photograph by Ariane Dixon

When I was younger, tea was something my mother prepared for me when I was sick. As I sat, weak with the sniffles, she would dip the bag into the boiling water and I knew the remedy was on its way. When I got my first job at a coffeehouse at the age of 16, I was blown away by the popularity of tea. What was once a drink only reserved for curing my colds was, in fact, a ritual for many. Everyone was drinking it-from the man who was missing a thumb and drank a cup of oolong every day to the families who came to share ebullient conversation and enjoy green tea together. I even noticed that kids my age were taking to the leaf. Since that first job, and the many coffeehouse jobs scattered in between, tea has further developed its identity, gaining even more interest with younger generations. Tea has been swept up in Generation Y's call for change, incited by the desire to better the world.

   Tea was once widely considered a supermarket item, a small-bag concoction that when soaked in boiling water produces an olfactory pleasure that soothes the throat. It was generalized as an older person's beverage, grandma's tea, usually accompanied by knitting and a rocking chair-a decidedly un-hip image. This image, however, has been transforming in recent years, the bag of Lipton replaced by specialty loose-leaf tea and the senior citizen by a wide-eyed twenty-year-old slouched behind an issue of The Onion.

   "Tea has changed. It is not [the average twentysomething's] mother's or their father's. More specifically, it's not their grandmother's tea," says Joseph Simrany, president of the Tea Association of the U.S.A. With this decidedly fresh face that tea now dons comes the expansion of avenues of distribution. Tea is more available than it previously was in the United States, and as teahouses are popping up in many metropolitan areas, everything is changing for the industry. "Green tea was once virtually nothing and jumped to a 250 million-dollar business. Then white tea is coming out of nowhere. You couldn't buy white until the last couple of years-only out of a couple provinces in China. Now everyone is claiming they have white tea," says Simrany.

   Presently in the United States, it is not at all uncommon to chance upon a tearoom that offers at least 30 varieties of tea, each one distinct in its origin and flavor. And it's not uncommon for that teahouse to be peopled with young tea drinkers. Part of their attraction is due to tea's variety. Tea has such a wide range of flavor possibilities that options seldom run low. There are dozens of green teas, black teas and oolongs, and then there are flavored teas and herbal blends. The list is endless. And because of many companies' experimentation, new varieties surface all the time. "People, the twentysomethings, are generally done with coffee; [they've] been there, done that. They are tired of it, and tea is something new and different. It's got such an array of flavors. There is much more to [tea] and in that sense the interest can be [sustained] longer because it takes a long time to master it," says Jhanne Jasmine, owner of Portland, Ore.-based The TeaZone. Availability and variety have a close-knit relationship and as availability increases in the United States. so does variety, reflexively leaving a lot of room for growth with the twentysomething crowd.

   The tea industry boom is due in large part to the Internet, a business and a cultural icon that has been headed up and used mostly by the generation that is 20 to 30 years of age. The Internet changed the world and everything around it; it has made some things obsolete and created new life for others. For the tea industry, the Internet has been a blessing. "I learned everything I needed to learn [from] the Internet and I probably went to twenty different tea wholesalers and ordered samples from all of them, tons of samples. My apartment was [so] filled with samples, you couldn't even walk on [the floor]," says Kelly Tisdale, co-owner of Teany, a New York City-based teahouse. Teany's other owner is the musician Moby, perhaps the quintessential artist representative of today's twentysomething generation. The fact that Moby, an individual very attuned to the young generation, co-owns a teahouse, is proof enough that tea is a big hit with Gen Yers.

   The Internet is the perfect way for tea retailers and others involved in the industry to reach twentysomethings in a non-aggressive way. Rejecting the status quo-the patented twentysomething m.o.-involves being mistrustful of salespeople. Young adults today grimace at inescapable sales pitches, which is why the Internet is this generation's preferred media. To acquire information, individuals must seek it under their own volition. The typical tea retailer's Web site features photos and information on each tea they sell, and most can ship Net-placed orders directly. And if a twentysomething decides to purchase tea from a site, he or she knows that it was a self-motivated decision rather than giving in to obnoxious advertisers, a powerful marker for that age group.

   Along with the independence of choice comes the decision to shun the ideals of previous generations. And tea, in many ways, is the antithesis of coffee, which has become the universal drink for the harried businessperson deeply entrenched in the rat race, a way of living today's twentysomethings fiercely reject. As they watch the workforce of America grab their cuppa joe and rush out the door, twentysomethings are content to relax with a pot of tea. The pattern goes: Reject the previous generation and do exactly the opposite of your parents. Twentysomething's parents grew to love specialty coffee only after their parents were brought up on Folgers and Chock Full O' Nuts. Tea is another way of bucking the norm established by the generations before, and its popularity steers the economy in another direction with twentysomething's increasing buying power.

   Another long-standing trend is the dominance of one particular coffee retailer over the others. With the ascendancy of this mega-coffee corporation came a countering effect in response to its business practices and products. Tea has gained status partially because of the omnipresence of this mega-coffee corp. The corporate lifestyle and corporations in general are big on the hit list of today's twentysomething, and boycotting one company's products and adopting a new one, like tea, is very popular. Jasmine says that very often her new twentysomething customers will first ask if she is part of a large corporation before buying her tea. "They are just very anti-Starbucks and anti-corporation. They are very aware of everything that surrounds Starbucks and the whole corporate thing. They just want to stay away from that," she says.

   The years spanning 20 to 30 are full of balancing responsibility with merriment. Tea and its multitude of flavors perfectly fit this paradigm, as Gen Yers drinking tea today tend to prefer types that offer a lot of flavor and health benefits to boot. Chai, a booming sector of the tea market, is very well-liked, having a spicy, smooth taste and a robust flavor that twentysomethings can easily grab onto. Chai doesn't require the concentration or refined palate that a more subtle green tea might. However, youth's mere interest in tea often leads to experimenting with other types of tea. "I find that with tea and that age group it's something like a chai or a bubble tea that brings them in. As they become regulars and purchase more of these products, they get intrigued by other stuff and they listen to customers who are standing there raving about a certain green or other tea. And that becomes one of the key factors in exploring tea. Next thing you know they are sampling tons of teas. They tend to evolve, but they usually evolve from the sweet, fun stuff towards the more sophisticated [teas]," says Jasmine. Herbal infusions are also hot with these burgeoning tea aficionados. The charismatic flavor of and plethora of options in herbal infusions allows twentysomethings to drink something that tastes more like juice than actual tea, yet they retain beneficial effects such as anti-oxidants. Tisdale projects that more than half of her tea sales from twentysomethings are for herbal infusions. "We do sell a lot of medicinal [infusions]. The liver detox tea is a big seller," and she laughs after the remark. "And [we have] a blood-orange [infusion] that sells really well, [as well as] a white melon. Basically, our customers like the stuff that tastes good and is recognizable [to them]."

   Inevitably, when tea is mentioned, the word "health" closely follows. Part of the reason tea is having a renaissance, especially with twentysomethings, is tea's hype in the last five years, in everything from anti-aging benefits to anti-carcinogenic properties. Twenty- to thirty-year-olds are conscious of their health like no generation before them, ushering in a growth of health food stores and biodynamic methods of farming. "The young people are generally more educated and more into health. There has been a lot of health publicity out there for tea and [it] has an effect. They are trying to make decisions that will last for the rest of their lives, they're exploring all the options. And as many good things as there are out there for tea, there as many negative things out there for some of the beverages that used to be king, like soft drinks," says Simrany. Twenty years ago, the idea of organics was almost unheard of but today it is commonplace. The tea industry's organic market has grown significantly in the last few years, with Gen Y buying up the stock with fervor. "This generation is also very interested in organics and [the like]. I find there's an amazing number of twentysomethings choosing a vegetarian diet, and wanting to know about and [opting] to eat organic food," says Jasmine. "There is more demand for the organic teas. That [part of the industry] is continuing to grow, which is very difficult because your land basically has to lie [dormant] for three years before you can start growing again. And most farmers are not able to take that loss or get government funding in those countries."

   Being informed is important to young generations today. Because of the Internet they have the world effortlessly at their fingertips, and have the passion to research what interests them, such as tea. They are well-informed about health and the mistakes of the past, and they know what kind of future they anticipate. This is why education about tea is on the rise as tea schools, such as Magnolia & Ivy in Florida, open across the country and also why teaching younger generations about tea flourishes. If twentysomethings are increasing their tea intake, it is paramount they be informed about tea. And as tea takes a firmer foothold in the U.S. market and more education is available, the young enthusiasts who are dedicated to the leaf will open their own teahouses and therefore pass the knowledge onto their customers. Once this cycle is established, the tea industry has immeasurable prospects.

   The future of the tea industry can only improve, according to its tea-savvy participants. The growth that has been experienced due to the ignition of twentysomething's fire for tea can only be a beneficial tiding for the leaf. "[Their interest] bodes well for the industry. It's associating specialty tea with a very high-quality, sought-after product, which is much less susceptible to price [drops] than traditional tea is," says Simrany regarding the future of the industry. And these benefits are two-pronged: good for the tea industry and good for tea drinkers. For tea enthusiasts who are now in those tumultuous twenties, the tea leaf, whether it is a form of silent generational protest, a healthy indulgence or just some new trend to get into, can prove to be a wise choice. "I think they are going to be much more hip and into it and aware when they are in their thirties and forties, having been introduced to it in their twenties. I think the real benefit to the industry will surface when they get a little older," says Jasmine.

Nick Obourn is the associate editor of Fresh Cup Magazine.