There's no truth in recent press reports that the great British affair with tea is over, and that we've all turned to the coffee bars. It's true that some sectors have fared badly, and a Scottish newspaper has reported that 47% of Scots prefer coffee to tea when out of home, because the quality of served tea is so poor.

But on the other hand, the use of tearooms for business meetings has increased. The tea lounges in London hotels have long waiting lists for bookings, and even at £20-£40 a serving, customers are prepared to wait hours for a table at the weekend. So if the best market for tea is at the quality end, how do you make the best of it?

The current big idea is the tea menu - very similar to a wine list in its use of descriptions, and the idea has become so entrenched in America that the role of "tea sommelier" has become an accepted role in some hotels there.

It's generally agreed that the first four items of a tea menu are fairly standard, such as Assam, Darjeeling, English breakfast and Earl Grey. These are the teas for which the Tea Council has advocated that four cups a day is the ideal intake, in its Tea4Health campaign.

The interesting part is choosing what unusual items can be added to win attention. Twinings says customers are prepared to pay at least an extra 15% for speciality teas, and Tetley points out that 80% of those who drink green tea arrived at it only recently, which shows an imaginative nature in consumers.

Both of those brands have introduced adaptations to known ideas. Twinings has introduced new green tea varieties such as a blend of green tea, orange and lotus flower, and has brought in a helpful range of "how to sell" notes which show how to promote the drinks.
Meanwhile, Tetley has come up with the surprising addition of vanilla to both its Earl Grey and its rooibos. Earl Grey tends to be a love-it-or-hate-it drink, and the addition of vanilla has been found to smooth out the taste, and allow the tea to be more acceptable with milk.

But these are variations on known drinks. Where are the really new ideas? The first tea to be commercially cultivated in Britain is now available - this is from the Tregothnan estate in Cornwall, and as a very specialist limited product, it's not cheap. The Daily Telegraph has suggested that the top-of-the-range tea would cost about £1.12

a cup to make, but its general product is considerably cheaper. It's still expensive compared with big-brand tea, but the publicity value of selling the first English tea should comfortably cover that.

One of the most visually successful teas to present is a flowering tea, and a new range has been introduced by Union Coffee Roasters.

They come from Numi of California, which sources them from remote tea gardens in the south-western Yunnan province in China, near the borders of Laos and Vietnam. Flowering teas are hand-sewn premium tea leaves, tied with cotton thread into various shapes. The process is to place one tea bundle or rosette in a glass teapot or cup where everything becomes visible. When steeped in hot water, the leaves slowly expand and the flowers delicately unravel in the cup. As with anything really special, they can command a high price on the menu.

One of the newest attention-getting brands to arrive in Britain is Revolution tea, blended and packed in California. It features a unique individual presentation in which each tea bag comes cello-wrapped in a tiny presentation box. The serving technique is for the box to be presented on the saucer, so that the consumer reads about the product as it brews.

The products are blended in Arizona, and while the fruit flavours seem to come from the heart of the Southern states, they still have a real tea content. The Sweet Ginger Peach has a base of Ceylon and Assam and the Royal Plum Decaf is Assam-based. There's a White Tangerine built on a base of Chinese White Fujian, and a rooibos with caramel.

Variety packs
The product is considerably more expensive than commodity tea, but this has raised few objections from the high-class tea market. The tea is in Selfridges food hall, in first-class airside lounges and Japan Airlines is serving them onboard. Several hotels have put five-box or two-box variety packs into bedrooms, and of course they all "walk" - but the hotels, having costed it in, are happy to be remembered as the place where the customer found the tea.

One of the smallest tea importers in the country, whose office is actually the cabin of a canal boat, has discovered surprising British trade in, of all things, the Argentinian national drink, yerba mate. Argentinians believe it increases energy and vitality, improves alertness, reduces nervousness and muscle tension, creates a feeling of well being and is an aphrodisiac.

"When we began to list it, we discovered that people bought more of it than they did of tea," says Cotswold Tea's Richard Healey. "It now dominates sales from our website, so I thought I'd better try it. At first I thought it was strange, and then I felt good all day. I was cynical at first but now I realise a teashop can do a lot with this."

To enhance the profitability, it should be served in a gourd, with straws for two or more people. As with old Chinese teapots, the gourd should never be washed so that it retains the essence of everything served in it.

Tetley has now launched its own ethnic drink, with the introduction of Chaya, said to be the first authentic branded chai from India. "Chai started in Kashmir, although different regions gave the drink their own spin," explains Tetley's Mike Lawless. "They take black tea, spices, milk and water, brew and bubble for up to two hours and add sugar. The spices can be a blend of anything from ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and pepper.

"We thought the leading chai in the UK was very stylised, and not entirely true to the roots - too sweet, very focused on vanilla, and less on the spices. We now have three different spice balances, all from absolutely fresh ingredients."

The product comes in a half-litre Tetrapak, with a small measuring jigger included. One shot is 30ml, and the right proportion is 7:1 with milk, ideally steamed at the espresso machine.

With exotic teas on the menu your waiting staff must learn all about them so they are able to answer guests' questions. The reputed aphrodisiac qualities of yerba mate may encourage them to do what all waiters really should, and taste the products for themselves.

Contacts

• Cotswold Teas: 01789 555023
• Revolution: 0870 403 1470
• Tetley: 020 8338 4000
• Tregothnan: 01872 520325
• Twinings: 01264 348681
• Union Coffee Roasters: 020 7474 8990