Is Tea Gourmet? Or is it Health?
Some tea merchants complained that the recent attention on tea for better health is actually doing harm to their business. One from New York said that during a tea presentation, as customers came up to ask her what that tea would do to the body or what it was good for, she got disoriented and could not provide satisfactory answers.
Some in the discussion suggested that the answer should be all teas are good for everything tea is good for. (He should really spend some time to read about the Health section in this site)
Others proposed that we should forget about the health aspect of tea and focus in promoting only the gourmet quality of specialty teas.
If I were a consumer, there is no reason for me not to care about the health side of a product
There have been so many reports about it in the press. It would surely feel good knowing that the beverage that I drink the almost every single day is also doing good to me. I do care about my health after all, more so as I grow older, every minute gets a little more precious; each moment doing things I love to do and spending time with people I care about has become so much more meaningful.
The quality of my health is so important for me to spend such time well. Hopefully with better health, I have more such precious time. Reasonably I care about how to best maximize the health potential of each tea selection with which I make every cup for almost each hour of the day.
The same motivation makes understanding all other food products and beverages, including plain water or flour or even salt, a lot more interesting and important.
So what health benefits would this tea deliver? and what about that other tea? I’d expect a tea vendor to tell me.
The more I care about my body and health, the more I care about the taste quality of everything that I put through my mouth. The single item that I consume most — the tea that I drink throughout the day — naturally is the focus. Therefore, don’t sell me something that you say is good for my health but not so good to my palatial experience.
I want the best tasting ones I can afford
Therefore, if I were that tea merchant in New York, I would spend time knowing the products in every one of my tea caddies. How does the taste quality compare amongst quality grades not in my shop? and amongst other varieties? How their taste can be manipulated through different preparation conditions, and when paired with different food, or mixed with different condiments. I would have to learn also about how they differ in salutary nature and update myself of current findings.
No these are not the only things that I would have to spend time in understanding, because I would have to learn what I am not carrying in my shop — what I have been missing, what my customers could be enjoying more than anything here in those old caddies. Selling tea is a misleadingly peaceful business; one could easily tempted to be at ease with the status quo, pouring a few cups for oneself each day and feel relax because of the biochemical effects of the beverage. The market, on the other hand, develops and changes. Conditions evolve. Trends come and go. People mature and get wiser. The world quickly adapts to new possibilities made possible by technologies and services that one can hardly perceive just 10 years ago.
So if I were to operate a teashop on Madison Avenue in Manhattan or in a small cottage in Gloucestershire in England, or an online shop from an old apartment in Hachioji near Tokyo, or a brand of packaged loose leaves for gourmet stores throughout New South Wales and Victoria, or to supply bulk for restaurants and hotels in Dubai, or even to run a take-it-or-leave-it wholesale store in Fangcun in Guangzhou, China, I would waste no time debating whether to promote the health aspect of tea or the gourmet side of it.
I’d suppose all my customers are interested in both
That is because as a consumer myself, I want the best of both aspects of tea. I want to drink not only the best tasting teas, but the wiser selections particularly for my health. Life is too short after all.
