The Hindu Business Line : Masala tea wafting success story in US

IT had not exactly been the American's cup of tea until some years ago. But today, masala tea, or chai as it has come to be known in the US, is finding an increasing place in the American's lexicon of hot beverages. And this is good news for the Indian tea industry, as a bulk of the tea that goes into the production of the US chai is from India.

It started off in a small way in California, where a few coffee shops began to offer customers a choice between coffee, tea and masala tea, to briskly spread to others parts of US, as Americans found a cup of steaming, gingery chai a good way to counter the winter's chill or the dreary rains or just to flare up their spirits.

The last few years have seen a clutch of branded chai products flooding the US market, such as Chai Guy, Masala Chai, Oregon Chai and Morning Glory Chai.

"Tea is today a $1-billion market in the US and masala tea is having an increasing share in it," said Ms Jessica Vidican-Neisius, owner of the Morning Glory Chai brand of masala tea. She does not exactly know how the word `chai' got to be associated with masala tea in the US. "It has obviously come from India, but today chai in the US means masala tea — that is tea with a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, coriander and other spices. More and more coffee shops are including chai in their menu, as they report many customers walking out if masala tea is not available in their outlets," she points out.

Indeed, the growth of the masala tea market in the US has been brisk. Take the case of Morning Glory Chai. "I first had a taste of chai during my college days in California. When I returned to my home in Seattle, I was surprised that there were no coffee shops offering masala tea. I hit upon this idea to supply masala tea and the first outlet that began to serve my product in 1995 was swamped with orders for chai from customers. The first year we did a business of $7,000, this year we expect to clock $0.5 million. Today, we sell 500 gallons of chai every week through a chain of 150 outlets," Ms Jessica said.

The Morning Glory brand at present has a market all along the US' west coast, with the company finalising plans to foray into the east coast later this year. "We plan to enter New York and Boston first and later cover the major cities," said Ms Jessica, who was in Mumbai as part of the 15-member trade delegation from the State of Washington, led by Mr Sam Reed, Secretary of State, State of Washington.

The growing masala tea market in the US has prompted many of the chai makers to go in for more value addition. The latest trend is to add more `masala' to the chai by adding Chinese herbs. "Oregon Chai, one of the popular brands in the US, with a turnover of about $7 million, has introduced a mixture of more than 10 herbs in its chai. We have also introduced special Chinese herbs having therapeutic value in our brand and it has gone down well with our customers," she pointed out.

Thus, with Americans developing an increasing taste for chai, the Indian tea market can aim to significantly increase its exports to the US in the coming years. A network of retail tea importers is currently sourcing tea from various countries for supply to the chain of chai outlets all over the US. "A far as Morning Glory is concerned, we use tea from Assam for our chai and we will stick to it," said Ms Jessica.

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