My cuppa tea series#

Stark contrast to coffee where more than 1,000 brands are battling each other to secure customers. Generally, the game was played by a large boutique provider trading in major shopping centres and the rest of the market was being services by a few local regional providers. In Australia, for a long time up until a few years ago there were just a small handful of players that serviced the quality tea market.

Where are the passionate local/global campaigners beating their chests and where are the cult followings that often make headlines and generate huge amounts of publicity. Yet there seems to be no such feverish fan clubs in the universe of teas. It seems as though for some people who are afflicted by the coffee passion bug, the brown bean has become the bell weather of their life - visit coffee forums and discover some of the most extreme humans on the planet - people with precise morning rituals rivalling military college procedures or those that tinker with their equipment for days, weeks and months hoping to extract that last 1% of improvement or efficiency from their beloved and sacred toys. Mention the word coffee and you will be bombarded with strong opinions, divided preferences, fierce brand loyalty and at times even court debate or controversy. It's the most widely consumed beverage on the planet after water, more than 3 Billion cups of tea are prepared each day from more than 3,000 different varieties. Why is it that so few people make a fuss about Tea ? I can't recall if Dad had the right answers at the time or we got distracted with something else, however, after all these years I still find this same question often bouncing around inside my brain.

'But she drinks tea and so do all of the other ladies that come to our house' I responded back to him. 'Because it will be a coffee place mate', Dad replied.

My cuppa tea series#

Just like our coffees, we pride ourselves in sourcing the best available teas and offering these at competitive pricesĤ0 years ago my father was arranging the street sign for Mum's new cafe in what was once a bustling Nelson Street, Wallsend NSW to be called The Upstairs Coffee Lounge.Īs young kids often do, I fired off a series of rapid questions to my Dad on the way to the sign writers.'Dad, why is Mum calling it the Upstairs Coffee Lounge when she drinks tea ?'