2018 ASHS Annual Conference

US tea consumption reached $12 billion in 2016, and is projected to have a 6% to 10% annual increase over the next ten years. Consumers are increasingly interested in where tea is sourced and whether or not it was produced in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. The “grow-local” movement in recent years also provides an opportunity for US growers and investors to consider this traditional Asian crop as a new specialty crop. This survey was conducted with more than 200 Master Gardeners, and focused on purchasing preference and willingness-to-pay for tea products grown and processed domestically. Results indicated that about 92% of survey participant drink tea, and retail stores and super markets (84%) are major places for purchasing tea products, followed by consumption at restaurants (48%). Tea bags are still the most popular tea products (82%) followed by ready-to-drink bottled tea (36%). About 19% of participants purchased loose tea in the past 6 months which is encouraging because currently loose tea is the most profitable type of product for U.S. tea growers. Compared with hot tea, especially those prepared from loose leaf, iced tea is still the most popular form in tea consumption, especially during the summer. For this specific age group, motivations for drinking tea are (by ranking): “it tastes good”, “health benefits”, and “relaxation”, and the top three factors affecting purchasing decisions were (by ranking) quality, availability, and cost. About 27% of participants prefer purchasing tea grown and processed locally or domestically, while 70% said origin does not affect purchasing decision. About 39% of participants preferred tea grown with sustainable production practices, while only 22% would like to purchase tea products that are organically grown. Assuming similar quality, about 54% of participants would pay the same price for domestically grown tea as they would for imported tea, and the rest would like to pay 10% to 20% more for domestically grown tea. These results indicate that there is a market demand for domestically grown tea and the demand is likely to increase when US-grown tea becoming more available.