TURIN, Italy – Italy gears up to further promote fine teas and high-level tea education in a market that is world famous for its espresso coffee culture and ranks high amongst the world’s biggest coffee consumer. Tea has still a long way to go, but this first step looks very promising. With coffee imports standing at over 500,000 metric tons (mt) of green beans, the tea imports of around 6,600 mt of dry leaf in 2018 lag somehow behind.
Clearly coffee dominates the market, with the Italian annual per capita consumption standing at about 6 kg of green coffee beans, according to the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) data and around 0,12 kg of tea leaves ready to brew, according to the International Tea Committee (ITC) statistics.
There is however a growing interest in the “slow food, health benefitting, sophisticated and premium origin cups” that attract both novelty keen millennials and widely travelled, affluent and knowledgeable senior consumers, who both look for alternatives to the traditional, gulp down Italian espresso.
This gradual unfolding of a promising new throat- share segment, provided by consumers looking for low stress, high hydration, smooth taste, wide ranging sensorics and premium far eastern exotic cups has been picked up by several dynamic Italian tea market operators, who are keen to expand this still little tapped potential.
The Industrial Italian Tea Market operators are federated in the subgroup tea, which belongs to the sector “others” of the 12 federated within the Unione Italiana Food, located in Milano. The subgroup “Tea” comprises today mostly multinational companies amongst its membership, with Unilever, Nestlé, Coca Cola, Twining and San Pellegrino on top of the list, catering mainly to mass market shelves and the RTD tea segment.
Investing lots of competence and unending amounts of energy some stakeholders have set up a not for profit structure, most appropriately named Protea, with has its seat in Torino. Cooperating under licence with Canada’s Tea Sommelier training programme, launched in 2012 by the Tea Association of Canada (TAC) Gabriella Lombardi, Protea’s President, who owns a premium tea shop in Milano, and Salvatore Nicchi, the founder and CEO of Tea Importers in Torino, have been running tea education and training for the past few years.
They have also decided four years ago to join the new global tea professionals training competition, the Tea Masters Cup International (TMCI).
Since the media attention and visibility of Protea is growing, the team was looking for an opportunity to run a first major national tea event and has joined the Gourmet Food Festival – Lingotto Fiere Torino- in late November 2019, where the First European Tea Show has been hosted very successfully as the exclusive event dedicated to the world of tea.
Intense preparatory work, albeit rather short notice, have allowed to gather a large international attendance of important players and fellow stakeholders, from The International Tea Committee, the FAO, from Canada, Russia and the UK, together with high profile participants from China, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Malawi and Brazil on the producer side.
Three days of masterclasses, tasting sessions and presentations by the international delegates, have highlighted the many hundreds and more available origin and quality cups, attracting much attention from both, tea retailers and regular as well as new coming tea consumers.
Recalling that tea is a unique millenary beverage possessing a heritage tradition and culture gives the cup a very distinctive profile compared to the commercial Western coffee trends.
Furthermore, tea drinking is closely associated with wellness and health benefits and the large variety of premium cups offer a wide range of taste experiences. Investing into this premium quality segment offers options focusing on lifestyle, well- being and health, socialising and innovation, even convenience, with ground leaf like matcha or hoji cha powder, all channelling towards the building of creative and sound business.
This First ever European Tea Show, a fully new concept designed and run by Protea, the Italian Premium Tea Association, has been so successfully operated, that the decision to continue with the scheme in year 2020 has now been enshrined, with the view to enlarge the delegates list as well as the overall attendance.
