Trendy teas try to give soda, coffee a run for their money

By TAKAKO OSAKA
The Associated Press

With a couple of Starbucks and at least one other big-name coffee shop within easy walking distance, not long ago Tomohiro Tsuchiya would have been better off opening his little cafe somewhere else.

A woman takes tea at Chanomi Club in Tokyo's Tsukiji district. The teahouse specializes in trendy green teas and various Chinese brews.

But he's got a trendy product to offer -- tea.

Thanks to a major media advertising blitz by big tea companies, Tsuchiya is attracting a broad range of customers to his little teahouse and reaping a share of the huge swell in Japanese tea consumption.

"We are seeing a steady increase in customers each year," he said.

Japan has long been the bastion of coffee-drinking in Asia, but shops are popping up all over to specialize in tea, from the trendy green variety to various Chinese brews. Bottled and canned tea is also now taking up considerable shelf space in supermarkets, and pushing its carbonated competition out of the country's ubiquitous vending machines.

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