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Why has tea been slow to innovate?
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Thursday, 08 October, 2026, 16 : 00 PM [IST]
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Geoffrey O’Sullivan
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Tea is consumed by billions of people, yet represents only a tiny fraction of the global food and beverage economy. Is tradition holding the industry back — or is the real opportunity hiding in plain sight? I have become increasingly frustrated during my time working in India. I come from the global food and beverage industry — a sector worth approximately $10.3 trillion. Global tea, by comparison, is estimated at around $74 billion — just 0.72 per cent of the global food and beverage market.
That difference surprises me.
Tea is consumed by billions of people. It has thousands of years of history, enormous cultural importance and some of the world's most sophisticated growing and processing traditions. Yet when I look at tea through the eyes of someone who has spent a career in food product development, I see relatively little of the scientific methodology, structured product development and experimentation that have transformed other parts of the food industry. Instead, tea often remains strongly anchored in tradition. Tradition has enormous value. But tradition should not prevent innovation.
Look at the bigger food and beverage market
The combined at-home and out-of-home beverage sectors exceed $520 billion, with growth of around 5.1–5.2 per cent CAGR. Premiumisation, single-origin products and convenient ready-to-drink formats are among the key drivers. Coffee provides an interesting example. Coffee has become far more than a beverage. Coffee shops have created environments, experiences and new consumption occasions. The product has become part of lifestyle, social interaction and premium consumption. The lesson isn't that tea should become coffee. It is that value can be created around a familiar product. And tea is beginning to show signs of doing exactly that.
Tea lounge is interesting
The combined coffee and tea shop sector is estimated to be growing at 8.6–9.6 per cent CAGR. Tea lounges are developing a different proposition from the traditional coffee-shop model. They can offer a slower, more meditative experience centred around loose-leaf premium origins, artisanal brewing, discovery and health and wellness. This is important. Because perhaps consumers don't need to be persuaded to value tea. Perhaps we simply need to give them more ways to value it.
What if tea could go much further? For centuries, we have largely asked tea to do one thing: make a drink. But what happens if we look at tea differently? What happens if we look at the whole leaf as a food ingredient? That changes the question completely. Instead of asking, “What does this tea taste like?” we can ask, “What can this tea contribute to the flavour of the food?” That opens a very different product-development landscape. Tea can potentially be incorporated into chocolate, bakery, confectionery, sauces, marinades and savoury foods. Now tea isn't restricted to the economics of the tea beverage market. It becomes part of the much larger food and beverage opportunity.
Discovery. Taste. Excitement. Health This is the philosophy behind my work with Culinary Milled Teas. Discovery — Find something new. Taste — Don't just talk about an ingredient. Put it on the plate. Experience it. Find out what it actually contributes. Excitement — Ask: “What else is possible?” Health — Can that discovery help us create food with greater value? This is why we developed finely milled whole-leaf tea as a culinary ingredient. The objective isn't simply to create another tea product. It is to explore what happens when tea becomes part of food. And ultimately: Meals Healthier Than Before.
India has an opportunity This becomes particularly interesting for India. India is already a major tea-producing and tea-consuming country. But perhaps the future opportunity isn't simply to produce and export more conventional tea.Perhaps it is to export more value from tea. Instead of exporting only tea in a packet, Indian tea could become an ingredient in food products developed, manufactured and exported around the world. Chocolate. Bakery. Confectionery. Sauces. Savoury foods. Marinades. New food formats that may not even look or taste like conventional tea. That could create new markets for tea while also creating opportunities for food manufacturers, ingredient companies, growers, processors and exporters.
Science plus tradition I don't believe the answer is to reject tradition. Quite the opposite. The tea industry has an extraordinary foundation of knowledge around cultivation, processing, provenance, regional identity and sensory characteristics. The opportunity is to combine that knowledge with the disciplines that have transformed the wider food industry: food science, analytical testing, sensory science, formulation, process engineering, consumer research and structured product development. Tradition gives us the starting point. Science gives us the tools to explore what comes next.
Perhaps tea doesn't need more consumers
Tea already has billions of consumers. Perhaps the industry doesn't need to persuade another billion people to drink tea. Perhaps it needs to discover more reasons to use tea. More products. More applications. More experiences. More value. More opportunities for innovation. The tea lounge is one example. Tea as a premium experience is another. Tea as a food ingredient could be another. And perhaps that is where the real opportunity lies.
India doesn't necessarily have to export more tea. Perhaps we can export more value from tea. Perhaps the future of tea isn't simply about producing more leaves, selling more packets or making more cups. Perhaps it starts with: Discovery. Then Taste. Then Excitement — “What else is possible?” And finally, Health. Creating food with greater value. Meals Healthier Than Before. Perhaps the next chapter for tea isn't simply more tea. Perhaps it is more possibilities from the leaf.
(The author is co-founder at Culinary Milled Teas Pvt Ltd India)
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