The Bridgewater Commons mall in central New Jersey buzzes with shoppers. Some take a break by ducking into Starbucks. Others—many drawn by the free samples near the entrance—cross the threshold of a store called Teavana, passing sales displays of teapots and tea cups, before arriving at the ordering counter. There’s no menu board or chalkboard listing beverage options. Rather, customers face a working display of colorful, round tea canisters the size of hatboxes offering a dizzying array of choices: Green, Black, Oolong, Herbal, even White teas.

There are many ways to chart the recent, explosive growth in tea consumption in America. One way would be to simply walk the supermarket aisles. In most stores, the tea offerings stretch much longer than those for coffee, and that’s not counting the increasingly popular, ready-to-drink bottled teas, nowadays possibly organic and infused with exotic fruits. You could also count the cups: According to the Tea Association of the USA, Inc., 2007 marked the 16th consecutive year that consumer purchases of tea increased. From 1990 to 2007, wholesale tea sales rose from $1.84 billion to $6.85 billion. Or consider the nationwide proliferation of tea parlors—from a couple hundred in the 1990s to today’s state-by-state listing of some 1,800 tearooms at the online TeaMap feature at Adagio Teas, www.teamap.com.

Arguably the most compelling proof of tea’s ascendancy in American culture is the very existence of this Teavana retail shop in a high-rent, high-traffic mall location. It’s one of more than seven dozen Teavana stores that have popped up across the country in recent years. In other words, a quarter century after Starbucks started cloning coffee stores, tea, too, has become chain-store worthy.

Why has it become a major player in the multi-billion dollar beverage industry? Those reading the industry tea leaves usually cite four reasons.

“The most important reason,” says Joseph Simrany, president of the Tea Association of the USA, “is the growing association with a great many health benefits.” Indeed, a recent GoogleTM search using the words “tea” and “health” produced about 4 million results—several hundred thousand more results than those yielded by linking the terms “carrots” and “health,” and “spinach” and “health.”

A second big reason for the continued rise in tea consumption is its increasing availability and convenience. The growing popularity of bottled teas, now a staple in vending machines and by the case in warehouse stores, has driven down the age of tea drinkers and pushed up iced tea consumption to 85 percent of the national intake.

Also driving sales, especially in current economic hard times,
is a third attribute of tea. When prepared at home, it’s a bargain. “A pound of loose tea will brew 200 cups, at about 10 cents per cup,” says John Harney, founder of the Harney & Sons tea company, which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary. “You’ll get 50 cups from a pound of good coffee,” he continues, pegging the per-cup cost at 20 cents for a $10 pound of joe. “Though quality tea is often twice as expensive per pound as coffee, because you use less, quality tea is cheaper than quality coffee.”

Tea also offers a much broader universe of choices. “When I first started selling teas in the early 1980s, we offered Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Darjeeling, Chamomile…a total of 12 varieties,” says Harney. “Now we must have 300, including Dragon Pearl Jasmine.” Another tea seller, Adagio Teas co-founder Michael Cramer, adds that tea offers a world of discovery. “Long viewed as a loss-leader commodity,” he says, “tea—similar to wine, cheese and coffee before it—has morphed into an aspirational, information-rich product.”

At the Teavana counter, when asked for “your best cup of tea,” my server recommends Golden Monkey, which sells for $18.50 for two ounces in bulk. She praises its cocoa undertones. And when I nod yes, she scoops two teaspoons into the store’s patented, clear plastic brewing container and adds three ice cubes, explaining that loose black tea should brew just short of boiling. She sets a timer for three minutes and charges me $4.99 for my 16-ounce beverage. A less expensive tea, like Gunpowder Green tea or an Egyptian Chamomile, would have cost $2.99. While my tea brews, my eye is drawn to a description of Monkey Picked Oolong: “Its legendary name refers to Buddhist monks who trained monkeys to harvest the youngest leaves from the top of the wild tea trees. Presently, the term ‘Monkey Picked’ refers to the highest quality of Oolong available.”

My first sip from my takeout cup offers an exotic, soothing alternative to my usual, afternoon cappuccino pick-me-up and reminds me of the words of James Norwood Pratt, the author of New Tea Lover’s Treasury: “No pleasure is simpler, no luxury cheaper, no consciousness-altering substance more benign.”

On The Tea Trail

Since local tearooms tend to come and go—often without much notice—the most reliable way to find one near you is to consult the aforementioned directory found at www.teamap.com. Search by state or, even more convenient, ZIP Code. It’s fast and free, and the service even includes customer reviews. Although the registry is regularly updated, be sure to call the establishment before making a special trip.—J.G.