Tea Tasting, British Style
Boosting the Retail Experience
Story by Ian Boughton
Photo by Ness/ Pace Studio

Question: If you already sell a lot of tea, could you sell more if you were to hold tastings and demonstrations? The answer from the British side of the Atlantic seems to be yes. At least, that is what many tea merchants are banking on.

A Public Interest In Tea
Tea is enjoying a renaissance in Britain, and its main growth is among young women. Tea is seen to deliver acceptable levels of both calories and caffeine, and so it is marketed alongside cosmetics and couture. In the irreverent words of the British Tea Council: "Tea is drunk by young women who want the perfect body, but can't be bothered to go to the gym, and still want to spend Friday night in the pub."
   This sector is the perfect target market for promotional work, and one of the most effective tactics has been found to be tea-tastings and demonstrations at retail locations.
   High-class teahouses, smart coffeehouses and delicatessens do it best of all. In Europe, the concept of sampling is well established. Retailers know how to get the product into the customer's hands. In British supermarkets, for example, it is quite common to be offered a small sampling of a new cheese, or a spoonful of a new dessert, or if you're lucky, a small glass of a new wine.
   The same holds true in certain British pubs, where a stranger might see an unusual beer on draft and ask, "What's that?" The wise barman doesn't hesitate to pull a small glass and offer, "Try it." The cost of the glassfull is nothing compared to the pints he will sell if the customer likes the sample. So it's a sound and time-tested investment.
   In Britain, tea is drunk in a specific way. The most popular tea sold is, by a country mile, black leaf tea, and that mainly from India-the British effectively owned India for a couple of centuries, and brought the taste back home. This black tea is, almost invariably, drunk with milk, perhaps because the great majority of black leaf tea drunk in Britain is the worst in the world, thanks to generations of commodity importers doing business on the cheap.
   And yet there is a public interest in good tea. Demonstrations and tastings have been found to be the best way to get this product into the customers' hands. The American popularity of iced teas, fruit teas, chai and so on is not yet mainstream here, and so these "exotic" beverages are ideal for tastings and demonstration events. White teas, decorative teas, herbal infusions and organic teas are also sure to attract attention.So how do the British traders do it? A good sampling requires very little investment on the part of the retailer. His or her job is simply to promote the event, make sure the customers turn up, and collect the money at the end of the day.
   Delightfully for the retailer, all the hard work is put in by the supplier, who generally brings the products, the cups, the point-of-sale displays and the presenters. The retailer simply supplies an endless amount of hot water, and gets on with day-to-day trade, while the presenter sets up a display table, preferably just outside the premises, and begins handing out tea, and telling the story.

The Steamy Story
The great attribute of tea is that it has many facets, and it is an easy matter to hold a customer fascinated by its complexity while pouring a sample.
   One of the most unique new tea-tasting products is Steam Tea, by Gaggia, pioneer manufacturers of espresso machines in the 1930s. Steam Tea is brewed in a traditional espresso machine. One tea bag goes in to a single portafilter basket, for a 20-second extraction.
   The tea itself comes from one of the most notable farms in Sri Lanka, and has an extraordinary clarity. The tea is black, to be drunk in the English style with milk, but there is also a mango flavor, which produces a remarkable beverage for presentation in a glass.
   In Britain, the product has won some mainstream success. A large university in the northern city of Sheffield has adopted Steam Tea across all its cafés and coffee bars. It makes for a most attention-getting demonstration in a coffeehouse. At British prices, a sample cup will cost about five pence, or less than 10 cents (U.S.). If the customers like it, assuming they have a home coffee machine, they can be sold a pack of 50 tea bags.
   Pukka Teas are a genuine British invention, already taken up by some traders on the East Coast of the United States. Pukka is Hindi for "genuine," and these teas are prepared by an herbalist and expert in ayurvedic principles, to achieve distinct sensations, typically calmness.
   "People are looking for an effect, or a mood," explains the company's founder, Tim Westwell. "Herbs have been used for this for thousands of years, and all our teas have between seven and 12 herbs in them. So when we say something is 'soothing,' that means we have blended herbs which have always been known for their calming effect."
   His tasting strategy involves always having a pot brewing in the shop. Once the area has filled with the aroma of herbal tea, customers cannot resist asking about it. The price per bag is a few pence, so sampling is cheap. The selling price in the cup should equate to a specialty coffee drink.
   A British tea, which has already made a mark in the United States, is 15-Minute Organic Tea, from Espresso Warehouse of Glasgow, Scotland. Espresso Supply of Seattle, Wash. already imports six flavors of it.
   Blended in Britain, the company has some fascinating flavors, such as the sweet chamomile with added honey, and the peppermint and licorice flavor, which serve as 'mood' drinks.
   However, 15-Minute Organic Tea has a new and different image. The tea is packaged as an "urban product," designed to be a tea for business people and main-street espresso bars. It is the first time in Britain that a tea has been promoted as hip.
   The most spectacular and visually attention-getting teas at a demonstration are display teas, such as those currently offered by Drury Tea and Coffee of London.
   These are specialty teas that few customers will have seen: hand-rolled "flower" teas which are prepared in China, and which "bloom" in the cup. Two of the most spectacular are Qi Ri Hong and Golden Flower, in which very fine leaves have been hand-tied with silk thread to a dried flower bud. The heat makes the bud open in the cup, a quite remarkable effect. The most spectacular of all is Pearls Over Oyster, in which several different sized effects appear.
   These are very delicate and light-colored teas, and will be right for venues where there is an understanding of the profitability of theatrical presentation.
   "Describe this as an 'opening flower tea,' and serve it in a latte glass," suggests Marco Olmi of Drury. "Bring the glass to the customers, with a jug of water, and show off the dried flower. Pour the water on it in front of the audience, and while you're talking about the origin, let it blossom and bloom in front of them. They're going to think it[s] quite spectacular."
   Spectacular, yet not expensive. Drury suggests that these very special flowering teas will cost a trader only pennies. Yet, presented well, they will go on to sell at a very high price.

Surprise the Customer
Probably the highest-earning product that can be shown at a tea-sampling event is not a tea at all, but a teapot.
   It comes from Ronnefeldt, the German company whose brand dominates the tea offerings in high-class European business hotels. The Ronnefeldt teas are unlike other teas packed in tea bags, because they have a bigger leaf. But the big secret is the teapot, and how it takes the tea bags.
   "A great danger with tea in a pot is to let it brew too long," explains Christine Collins, the British distributor. "The flavor of tea is influenced by how long the leaves are in the water, and the effect of tea is changed by the length of time it brews, becoming more relaxing rather than stimulating. Black tea, brewed for 10 minutes or more, is probably better than a pill for helping you sleep!"
   Ronnefeldt has a way of encouraging the correct brewing time: the Tilting Teapot, which sits in different positions as the tea brews. In the first position, the tea can be placed on a little shelf, which sits just under the opening, and the water poured in. The teapot is left on its back, and the tea brews. After a few minutes, the teapot is moved to the forward position, which effectively lowers the water level away from the leaves.
   These teapots make for fascinating demonstrations, and to Ronnefeldt's slight surprise, they have become a marketable item in their own right. The price to a trader is probably £12 ($20 U.S.) but after a demonstration, customers have been known to offer $50 or $60 for one!
   There is nothing quite as attention-getting as the catchline, "the world's most exclusive tea," and the man who uses this line is in favor of tea tastings. The most careful grower of tea on the island of Sri Lanka is Merrill J. Fernando of the Dilmah company, who believes that with his new series of Watte teas, he has now achieved his lifelong mission to produce a collection showing each of the island's four growing regions.
   Dilmah teas are known in the best tearooms in Europe, but have yet to make an impact in the United States. Their niche is the exceptionally high-quality deli market, and the thing which separates Dilmah teas from all others is the Fernando family's obsession with freshness. (The supply chain in everyday tea can be so complex that tea on a supermarket shelf can be a year old when the consumer buys it.)
   "The difference is evident when you have the chance to taste garden-fresh tea," says Dilhan Fernando, son of the founder. "Our authentic experience in tea is achieved by individually foil wrapping our tea bags. Within days of harvesting, the tea is sealed by a barrier that will protect the tea from loss of freshness and aroma. The difference is quite remarkable."
   Remarkable enough to surprise consumers, concedes the company.
   "Consumers may have grown accustomed to teas that resemble colored hot water. Our teas offer an astringency and sharpness in flavor that consumers may not be used to. This is the taste of fresh tea!"

Forget the Glitz
With so many attention-getting ideas that will bring crowds to a demonstration table, all that remains is the practicality of putting the event on.
   Simon Bower of Pollards is an authority on how to run a profitable tea tasting. Pollards is from Yorkshire, in the northeast of England, a region that respects good tea.
   A sampling event, says Bower, improves the knowledge of both sales staff and customers at the same time.
   "I went to a big department store, which stocked our products, and asked, 'I want a medium flavor tea, what would you recommend?' and they suggested something very ordinary. I investigated, and discovered that the store manager hadn't even tasted our teas.
   "So I offered to put on a special tasting for him and his staff, and I found that this was the first time a supplier had ever explained taste to them, instead of just talking about the color of the box. He was so fired up, he volunteered to stay late and help me with an evening tasting for customers.
   "I have also discovered that consumers respond to something special, so long as you tell them why it's special. I have done a tasting where one customer came back six times with different friends, saying 'you must taste this.' And then she bought six boxes herself, and she will now be an evangelist for that store."
   There are, he says, techniques and tricks. Have a pre-brewed sample in a glass container on a shelf, and make a game of asking the customer to describe the color and taste.
   Never give a promotional price at a tasting. The whole point of it is to convey that specialty teas are better than lower grade teas, so do not bring the price down. Certainly, offer something else, such as a two-for-one offer, or a free mug, but never a discount.
   The protocol for a tasting is that all the money taken goes to the retailer, even if all the stock sold is promotional stock brought by the demonstrator. But when customers show they want to buy, the demonstrator should never guide them to the shop's cash-desk. If they've been talking to one person, they want to buy from that person. Give the money to the store manager later.
   Almost invariably, those who put on tastings warn against glitz, glitter and glamorous promotional girls. It doesn't fit with tea. Keep it homely.
   "We are not a faceless multinational corporation," says Gary McGann of Espresso Warehouse. "Customers who come to a tea tasting want to meet the guys who decided to add five-percent honey to their chamomile, and to understand why. Forget the glitz." And does it work? " The return may be hard to quantify in the short-to-medium term, but customers will remember it, and it will lead to word-of-mouth publicity, which for small companies is crucial and invaluable. For the retailer, a tasting event can be much more cost-effective than advertising."

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Ian Boughton is the editor, together with his wife Trudi Roark, of Boughton's Coffeehouse, a U.K.-based publication covering the global coffee scene. He can be reached at ianb@coffeehouse.org.uk.

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Fresh Cup Magazine would like to express their appreciation to Jhanne Jasmine, Grant Cull and everyone at The TeaZone for hosting a tea tasting. For more information about The TeaZone in Portland, Ore., visit www.teazone.com.