Cozying Up to Tea

A handful of companies last week at IFT suggested tea is poised for a major breakthrough in the American market. What’s a key driver of superfruits? Antioxidants. Well, tea has those foils to free radicals in spades. Also, it’s hard to get more natural than tea. And once you account for the varying points of fermentation—yielding types like oolong and black tea—it also boasts a complexity on par with coffee just begging for astute flavor pairing in foods and, natch, beverages.

One of the firms clearly on the tea tip is Virginia Dare, which steeping its entire show presence in various aspects of Camellia sinensis. At its off-site, invitation-only press conference, tea ambassador and author of “New Tea Lover’s Treasury” James Norwood Pratt led a tasting of teas that provided high-level edutainment (Pratt was also on hand at the company’s booth, illuminating the masses on the finer points of tea).

China very well may be poised to take the economic world by storm in the coming years, but one of its key exports is already ready to take the food world by storm. Expect to see tea not only on the continued rise in beverages in the coming months and years (in both adult and family-friendly drinks), but also in foods across the menu and from shelf-stable areas to refrigerated sections and the freezer.