European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - October 5, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Britain s waning thirst for Tea a a can for tit bar fair Coffa i by Steve Lour new York times a mused Christopher Wheeler a Young British stockbroker i never touch  Al Rudland & Lubbs a bustling lunch spot Tor London s Young Well muted Shivers the general manager Polar Tolaini was equally dismissive sure a Lew nations still order it. But Coffee outsells Lea Lenford Al his restaurant to said. Our customers Don t drink Lea at All he added. The Litany of aversion in repealed again and again testimony to the decline or that most British of pastimes Tea drinking. Tha waning British thirst for Lea is a Long Lerm trend that began in lha 1960s but in the last decade alone he volume of Tea consumed in Britain has alien More than 20 r Ercell. . Till drink two cups of Tea for every cup of More expensive Coffee but thai is Down from six cups to one in 1966. And last year the value of Coffee sates surpassed Tea in Britain for he first time according to Manlel a Market research firm Tea s fading popularity is attributed to faster paced living a generation Gap and a stodgy image. Many people these Days do not want to Lake lha time to brew Lea and even fewer will interrupt their Busy Days for the leisurely civilized ritual of Allimoon Tea a 19lh Century invention of Anna seventh Duchess of Bedford who decided that Lea and cakes were the Best antidote to a late afternoon sinking  volumes of marketing reports brimming with such commercial cant As  have confirmed what is obvious to Many British parents with grown children there is a generation Gap in sipping lashes. Derek Cooper who is 62 years old is a Well known British food writer and a confirmed Tea Drinker. But he admits thai his two children both in their 30s, prefer Coffee. We re a grading Bunch we Tea drinkers i m afraid Cooper said. To Many Young britons Tea drinking apparently has e dated image vaguely reminiscent of the old England stereotype that Young people find irritating Tea has an old fashioned. Dowdy image conceded Illtyd Lewis executive director of the United kingdom Tea Council a Trade group that seeks to Spur Tea sales. Ii is unfortunately viewed As a Down Market  Long gone it met Are the Days when Tea was deemed the drink of distinction inspiring g k. Chesterton the Brill so writer to proclaim Tea although an Oriental is a  to or. Samuel Johnson reputedly a 40-cup-a-Day Man it was a lubricant of though and speech. As his biographer James Boswell noted the old philosopher was Given to swallowing his Tea in  at Johnson s old London hangout the Cheshire cheese however they serve no Tea these Erma Bombeck Days Only Vollee. Like everything Tho demise in British Tea drinking is a relative Mailer head Tor Hoad Britain is still a Lea sipping superpower. Tho average briton drinks More than t.200 cups of Lea a year. True Tho current level is Down from just Over 2,000 cups a year in 19sband More than 1,600 cups in 1976. But that is still nearly 10 times the per capita Tea consumption in Iho United slates and More than Lour limes the Tea drinking in the soviet Union. A Hough a preference Lor Lea in the United states has risen slightly about 4 percent Over the last 10 years More than twice As Many americans Sittl drink Vollee regularly Over Lea. The leading drinking countries besides Britain Are the Middle Eastern nations China Japan and Britain s former colonies. The got exception to the Post colonial preference for Tea was the United states of course. In 1773, Britain by an act of parliament retained its tax on Tea to the colonies prompting first the Boston Tea parly and then the american revolution. Britain pressed the Issue partly to underline its assumed right to continue taxing the colonies but also to help the British East India co., which held the monopoly on the country s Lea Trade. Yet As one Tea history recounts sadly so England Tost an Empire to oblige the East India co., and a great Republic was bom with a prenatal disinclination for  the Tea Trade also turned the British into opium runners in the 19th Century Britain bought Tea and silk from the chinese but the mandarins wanted Only Sterling in return since they had no need of Trie manufactures of outside  desperate to husband its Sterling reserves and still keep the Tea coming lha British traded with opium. The Bedrock of the great trading houses of Hong Kong such As Jardine Matheson. The British Tea Industry today consoles itself with the thought that declining consumption is inevitable and not Loo worrisome because Lea is still the Leader in the non alcoholic drink Market. Other rivals to slake the National thirst however Are coming up fast. Including Trull juices and soft drinks in addition to Coffee which is roughly twice As expensive per serving As Lea. Tea consumption has declined inexorably Lor the past decade said the Tea Council s Lewis. But patently Tea is the Market that a going to be plundered by other  the big British Tea companies insist that the worst of Tea s decline is Ever. They Point to the increasing popularity of Tea bags As a sign of the Industry s response to consumer demand for a More convenient faster brewing cup of Tea. Some even Sec glimmers of Hope that Young people Are starting to gel interested in Lea again because of health concerns about the higher caffeine Content of Coffee. The British cup of Tea is still alive and Well said Colin dog a spokesman for Unilever s Brooke Bond subsidiary the nation s leading Lea marketer. Still the British Industry can Fay no claim to being in innovator. Remarkably it was Only in the mid-1980s that Lea bags with strings and a paper lab were introduced in Britain a development hat one Industry spokesman called a big  previously Tea bags were tossed into a cup of hot water and had to be fished out with a spoon after me Lea had bowed. The $1 billion a year Industry has consolidated Inlo fewer hands in recent years so the leading companies Hara been Able to maintain sales even As the Lea Market has been shrinking. Accordingly the leading brands such As Brooke Bond s pm tips Allied Lynn s tet toy end Premier brands typhoon have tightened their hold on the popular Tea Market which accounts for about 80 percent of All Tea sold in Britain. The one genuine Bright spot in the British Lea Market is for the More expensive specially brands led by Twining find ways and Jacksons for example sales it the �81 year old r. Twining & co. Have grown by More than 10 percent annually in recent years. Samuel Twining a director and the ninth generation of his family in the business views lha Success of specially teas As part of the worldwide Drift by the affluent professional classes toward prestige products. In the drink Field he noted. More people have become sophisticated about Tea in recent years just As they have about wine. Cheap Tea is declining Twining said but High Quality Tea is  another Niche of Prosperity in the Lea business is the afternoon Leas at some of London s Best hotels. At the rite Lor instance the afternoon Tea is so popular now that reservations Are required and customers Are charged Sis a head for Tea. It s Papular because it s fashionable said Julian Payne the Ritz s general manager. There is almost a theatrical setting to the  indeed the customers taking afternoon Tea in the hotel s Palm court recently were obviously enjoying the theater of it All with Many snapping pictures of each other in the sumptuous surroundings scarcely noticing that most of their m of patrons judging from their accents were americans. I wondered How Long it would take airline passengers Riding in tourist Economy and super Saver seats to storm the Limp curtain of first class. How Long would they sit there and watch that Kaye curtain being snapped together leaving them suspicious and classless How Long would they watch Little Carls whip in and out behind those curtains before being challenged to take a peek Well looks the revolution has begun. In a recent Story in travel & Leisure Magazine a California woman was awarded 18,000 in a suit which alleged thai a first class passenger cursed and shaved her As she stood in line to use the bathroom in first class. On a scale of guts that s equivalent to Landing a plane in red Square in the soviet Union the Mclim admitted she pushed through the Limp Chan Only As a last resort. She could not reach her own facilities because a Demk cart blocked the aisle. The Page 16 the stars and stripes defendant charged that the woman trespassed in first class end totalled his priority right to use the  this is serious stuff of sure now it s Only the too but this is Only the first Brick to be plucked from the Berubi Wall of the airways. Next thing you know a super Saver passenger Wil try to inf Thrata his garment bag Inlo a first class Section or try to inhale first class smoke. First class travel has always been a mystique to most americans shrouded in fantasy and mystery. Some visualize it As a special place in the sky where skirts and Light limes Are Shorter entertainment is live bathrooms Are big enough to shut the door without standing on the Seal and the Pilot will go into a holding pattern if an orgy is in Progress. Some people with great imagination actuary visualize women with tiaras Large bosoms and lace fans throwing Back their Heads and laughing. Let pm eat stale cake and Green noodles Back  monday october 1987 most first class passengers Are sworn to uphold the secrets of the first class myth when they buy their tickets. But now that a tourist passenger with weak kidneys has infiltrated the holy compartment. Ii is ludicrous o keep silent any longer. It s time Lor the truth to be revealed. The irony is thai the Limp curtain dividing first class from tourist was never meant to keep the tourists in the dark. But the first class passengers no one wanted them to know that their cocktail service was longer so attendants could1 get tourist class served first they wanted to keep secret the fact that although they were paying twice the Are. The food was the same and Wittey had half As Many bathrooms. Recently i was Riding in business class when i saw a first class passenger spying at us through the Limp curl am he knows too much or them of let him live. If 1hlens Tun