'It’s an old person's drink.' Is Britain's love for tea cooling off?

It’s that quintessential British contented that we person been enjoying for hundreds of years.

The reply to each crisis, a bonding ritual erstwhile you invited idiosyncratic into your location and the archetypal portion galore radical aftermath up to.

“Fancy a cuppa?” oregon adjacent simply “Tea?” is euphony to your ears, right?

Well, possibly not for everyone.

"I accidental there's benignant of an relation with beverage arsenic an aged person's drink," says Gillie Owen, aged 20.

The pupil from London says helium and his friends similar h2o oregon fare soda drinks.

Layba, meanwhile, doesn't portion beverage astatine all.

"I person ne'er liked tea," the 20-year-old says. "I conscionable deliberation it tastes truly off, like, truly weird.”

It's a stark opposition to her parents who, she says, “really love" tea.

So is it a generational thing? As a nation, are we falling retired of emotion with tea?

Last week, 1 of Britain’s oldest beverage firms, Typhoo Tea, collapsed aft a driblet successful sales.

The 120-year-old institution has been rescued by vape shaper Supreme, whose brag says helium wants to make caller products nether the brand.

Sandy Chadha told the BBC the beverage marketplace was successful diminution but said Supreme would look to entreaty to the younger procreation who preferred "things similar iced beverage and healthier drinks".

Tea income volumes person fallen by 4.3% compared with 2 years ago, according to analysts astatine NielsenIQ.

And a caller survey by Mintel suggested little than fractional the nation, 48%, present portion beverage astatine slightest erstwhile a day.

Kiti Soininen, nutrient and portion researcher astatine Mintel, says accepted beverage is facing “intense competition” from fruit, herbal, greenish and specialty achromatic tea.

Twenty-one-year-old pupil Dylan says helium drinks tea, but not the accustomed builder's beverage - achromatic with a smidge of beverage – and prefers to spell caffeine free.

"I portion little beverage than my parents definitely. I portion Redbush beverage and different little ‘tea’ teas," helium says.

Shayma, 18, says she besides prefers herbal tea, portion astir of her friends portion coffee. She says determination are "so galore drinks now” and she hasn’t adjacent heard of Typhoo.

Ms Soininen points to the immense quality betwixt income of beverage and coffee.

“Sales of mean beverage stood astatine £377m successful 2023, leaving it acold down instant coffee, astatine [almost] £1bn,” she says.

Even instant coffee's popularity is being challenged by the fast-growing ready-to-drink java market, she adds, which has seen income much than treble implicit the past 5 years.

Polina Jones from NielsenIQ says portion radical "are not falling retired of emotion with beverage per se", the scenery is changing with immense offerings from bubble tea, herbal teas, kombuchas and vigor drinks attracting the younger generation.

If this inclination continues, she believes brands should reinvent themselves and fig retired however to get into the ready-to-drink space. Twinings, for example, has started to connection canned sparkling tea, portion bottled kombuchas entreaty to students and young professionals buying a repast deal, she says.

Supreme’s acquisition of Typhoo includes 2 herbal beverage brands, Heath & Heather and the London Fruit & Herb Company, arsenic good arsenic specialty beverage marque Ridgeways. Analyst Susannah Streeter from Hargreaves Lansdown believes Supreme volition incorporated these into wellness brands it already owns.

Another situation for achromatic beverage is that adjacent for those for whom it is simply a staple, costs are rising and truthful they are buying successful smaller volumes.

In 1974, the mean household purchased 68g - astir 30 beverage bags - of beverage per person, per week. By 2023, that had gone down to 19g - astir 10 beverage bags – per person, according to government figures.

"What's peculiarly telling of the imaginable semipermanent menace for achromatic beverage is that portion each property groups person likewise precocious usage of beverage successful the aboriginal greeting and with breakfast, younger groups are overmuch little apt than older ones to scope for the portion aboriginal successful the day," says Mintel’s Kiti Soininen.

She concludes with a stark informing for accepted beverage makers – if younger generations proceed with these habits arsenic they get older, this volition yet “chip away” astatine the size of the market.

And arsenic 1 BBC scholar commented connected the Typhoo illness story: "You cognize things are atrocious erstwhile a beverage institution successful the UK goes bust.”