Chinese tea drinkers on the rise despite competition from coffee

Indian Express Newspapers (Mumbai) Ltd.

BEIJING: Despite competition from the western-origin coffee, tea, a beverage which originated in China, has survived and in fact thriving with the booming Chinese economy.

The Chinese character ‘cha’, meaning tea, was in the nation’s first dictionary Erya, compiled in the early Han dynasty 2,100 years ago.

Tea is older than the name of China, but in the face of modernisation and competition from global giants like starbucks, can it survive?

This used to be a major concern in the 1990s. It was a time when huge swarms appeared for the opening celebration of Beijing’s first starbuck’s coffee in 1999, while barely anyone showed up for the opening of the city’s first privately-owned Wufu Tea House.

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