Specialty Retailers See Strong Tea Sales

Among specialty retailers like Starbucks, servings of hot tea rose 18 percent for the year ended February 2013, compared with a year earlier, according to NPD Group, while the iced variety showed solid growth of 5 percent over the same period. In supermarkets, ready-to-drink tea has been booming for some time; during the past six years, it has grown 58 percent, to $3.8 billion in wholesale figures, from $2.4 billion. In the U.S. last year, ready-to-drink tea grew 5 percent, making it the fourth-fastest growing beverage category, according to Beverage Marketing Corp., reports Advertising Age