PARIS, 17 December 2003 — Twenty years ago the French drank tea only when under the weather, usually if they were feeling liverish. The only French people seriously interested in tea were an ageing group of tweed-clad anglophiles amused at the idea of cultivating the somewhat exotic side of the British. But over the last decade or so, tea — with its strong image of harmony, purity and tranquility — has become a fashionable drink.
France is now the fourth largest tea-drinking country in Europe. Ireland comes first with three kilos (6.6 pounds) of tea drunk per head per annum, followed closely by England. Germany and France are at about the same level with 250 grams (just over half a pound) per head per annum. Consumption in France rose 10 percent annually between 1985 and 1995, and has now steadied with a growth of around three percent per annum.
Frederic Levacher, Lipton’s marketing director in France says their company aims to make tea the drink of the 21st century.
“As far as non-alcoholic drinks are concerned, France is mainly a mineral water and coffee drinking nation,” he said when interviewed. “However tea, with its natural, feel-good image, is just what the French are yearning for now.” France imports approximately 14,000 tons of tea a year, 70 percent of which is sold in supermarkets, the rest through restaurants and specialized shops.
Approximately half of tea sales in France are in flavored teas.
Christine Dattner is president of the elitist Tea Drinkers’ Club and founder of the “Contes de Thi’ importing company. She creates fragrant teas that are also attractive to look at. One of her best-sellers, she said, was “a mint tea made with two different selected green teas, flavored with a special peppery mint from Morocco, with pretty pink rose petals scattered over it.”
Of all the 600 tea outlets and specialized shops in France, Mariage Freres is regarded as the quality leader, the one which adds an elegant ‘French touch’ to every detail that surrounds tea. The company, established in 1854, has always been ahead of the others, innovating, creating and expanding abroad — they now have 100 authorized dealers in the US and four shops in Japan.
“We are artisans, not industrialists,” maintains managing director Franck Desain. The company’s four shops in Paris offer a staggering 500 varieties of quality teas from 30 different countries. Mariage Freres were the first importers in France to actually open a shop and then a “salon de thi” (or tea-room), and the first, back in 1860, to make tea-flavored chocolates.
The era when the French had that nagging feeling that the British did it better — as far as tea is concerned — is clearly over. Many of the finest teas are now found in France where they are packaged and sold with style.
