New Tea Factory Pine Tea and Coffee will open its new tea production and storage facility adjoining the current manufacturing facility in Castle Hill. For some time now we have been working under difficult conditions with the fast growth of our business within the confined space available. The new premises will allow us to separate tea production and storage from other activities such as coffee roasting, packing and flavouring and the broad range of accessories and flavour syrups on our list. The new facilities will improve working conditions for our staff and provide better service to our customers. A key component of the expansion is meeting the needs of OH&S and Workcover to provide a safe environment for employees and customers. The showroom area will also be expanded with more products available for customers to see when visiting our premises. And, the additional meeting room area will allow us to provide better educational facilities to customers.

Orthodox “Leaf Tea” Trends The trend in world production figures shows India well down by 4.5% or 36.8 million kilos and Sri Lanka up by about 1.5% or 5 million kilos, in total a deficit in two countries that traditionally produce a lot of orthodox leaf tea. On the other hand Kenya, a CTC or teabag type producer, is well up by about 9.5% or 31 million kilos. Overall world production is about level with consumption rising and available planting areas scarce and continually competing with other food groups. The Specialty Leaf Tea Market has established itself as a major growth area across the world with most coffee companies now seeking to establish an in house brand of tea to compliment coffee supplies to both retail and foodservice customers. The benefits of this growth have been three fold, better returns for producers, better quality for consumers and better profits for distributors particularly in the foodservice and specialty retail markets where consumers expect to find best available quality. There is further opportunity for production in new growing areas such as Vietnam but there is little expansion in plantings of quality types for the surging specialty tea markets. And any move by the USA to force a revaluation of China’s currency will force tea export prices up. The long-term outlook is good for existing producers who may benefit from rising prices but end markets will need to continually adjust to price and origin changes.

Act With Your Feet When you next go into a café and ask for a cup of tea remember to enquire first as to whether they are serving leaf teas or tea bags. A tea bag costs the café about 5 cents to 10 cents per cup at the most and they will probable charge you up to $3.00 per cup or even $4.50 per 2-3 cup pot and in the latter case probably only put one tea bag in the pot. Comparatively a coffee requires the skills of a Barista, coffee grounds at about 30 cents per cup, an expensive espresso machine minimum $5,000 value and generally much more milk than a cup of tea for the same price. So you are being ripped off for your “cup of teabag”! Demand a “cup of specialty leaf tea” and expect 1 heaped teaspoon per cup and one for the pot or make a point of walking to the next café.