According to a research by market intelligence agency Mintel, India was the world’s largest packaged tea market in 2017, consuming a total volume of 678,200 tonnes worth of packaged tea, followed by China in second place at 576,800 tonnes,.
While India is the leading market for retail volume sales globally, Turkey takes the lead when it comes to per capita consumption. Behind Turkey, European countries feature strongly in the global per capita consumption ranking: the average Turkish consumer guzzled 2.15kg of packaged tea last year, followed by British consumers at 1.15kg, Russians at 0.91kg, Japanese at 0.74kg, and Germans at 0.67kg.
Indeed, Mintel research reveals that in 2017 most Chinese consumers (78%) were frequent users of freshly brewed loose tea. Ready-to-drink (RTD) tea drinks also enjoy high penetration in China, with half (49%) of Chinese consumers identified as frequent RTD tea drinkers. Tea bags, on the other hand, are frequently enjoyed by 45% of these Chinese respondents.
According to Mintel Global New Products Database (GNPD), hot tea launches in Asia Pacific accounted for 27% of all global new tea product launches in 2017, while RTD tea launches in in Asia Pacific accounted for 13% of these global tea launches.
