White Tea Gaining Favor with U.S. Consumers

Published on: March 22, 2006

While many food and beverage products banner themselves as "new age" offerings that fit nicely into today's health-conscious consumer's lifestyle, many of the packaged items contain only "trace" measures of the very ingredients they use to position themselves on the shelves or in the coolers. These include ginko biloba, taurine, ginseng, proline, and creatine, among many others. (Trace measures are so miniscule that even though the aforementioned ingredients do, in fact, have health-related attributes, the amount typically found added into the products is so small that their effects are not discernable.)

But white tea is different. Just like the popular green tea (which has been noted for its antioxidant qualities, particularly among Asian cultures, dating back centuries), white tea is derived from the Camellia sinensis plant. However, unlike most other varieties (including traditional black tea and oolong tea), the leaves of white tea are harvested before they are fully opened. Indeed, the name "white tea" is derived from the fine white hair that covers the uppermost tender buds of the plant. For this reason, white tea is sometimes referred to as the "Rolls Royce" of the tea family.

Like green tea, white tea undergoes very little processing. But while green tea has a noticeable grass-like flavor, and often requires sophisticated sweeteners to be acceptable to the American consumer's palate, white tea offers a natural light, sweet flavor. For best results, white tea, which contains less caffeine than most other varieties (15mg per serving as opposed to 40mg for black tea and 20mg for green tea), should be steeped just below the boiling point. White tea should be consumed in its natural state - that is, without adding sweetener or dairy products to the brew. Doing so has been likened to adding Coca-Cola to a single-malt whisky.

But most importantly from a scientific perspective, studies have indicated that white tea offers even more cancer-fighting antioxidant agents than green tea. Tea consumers are apparently listening. According to ACNielsen data, while dollars generated by bagged tea in the combined food, drug and mass channels (excluding Wal-Mart data) have increased marginally over the past four years, dollar sales of white tea have jumped exponentially.

That, more than anything, should be opening the eyes of tea marketers and retailers alike. Makers of ready-to-drink iced tea brands are taking note. Currently, Honest Tea, Revolution Tea, Inko's, Origins, Fuze and even the pioneer Snapple, are among the popular ready-to-drink teas that offer white tea varieties.

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