Aromatic teas post big holiday gains.

The 1995 Christmas season in Germany showed a dramatic rise in consumption of orange, cinnamon, coconut, clove, and vanilla flavored tea varieties, which are all considered "best sellers." German tea merchants long-accustomed to this consumption trend during the cold pre-Christmas months aggressively marketed the flavored tea varieties as consumers, unperturbed by growing unemployment, "cleaned up" many special tea stores in the country in the high pitched shopping spree that starts in September and ends in January.

German tea stores stocked large quantities of black tea imported from India, China, and Sri Lanka and flavored with spices and fruits. Indeed, Christoph Goetz, a tea wholesaler in Hanover, whose distribution network includes 300 of the country's more than 2,000 special tea stores, observed that aromatic tea varieties proved to be the highest selling items in tea shops in 1995.

These aromatic tea varieties were the fastest selling items in successive years in the past. The total quantity of the aromatic tea sold by his agents had been five times as high as the usual best selling variety, the Earl Gray tea, Goetz claimed. The small- and medium-sized special tea stores had sold an average of 500 to 600 kilos a month. However, the same quantity of flavored tea could be additionally sold from September to March, Goetz declared.

However, Goetz has not been the only wholesaler to profit from the aromatic tea boom experienced during the Christmas season. The Gebr. Gschwendner GmbH in Meckenheim, for instance, also concluded a good Christmas season. The company expected a sales turnover of some 12 tons of Christmas tea this year, corresponding to a share of over 2% of the total sales of all tea varieties throughout the year. At the price of some DM60 a kilo, the turnover value of Christmas flavored tea varieties amounted to DM720,000.

The head of the tea section of the Reinbeck-based import house Gebrueder Wollenhaupt GmbH, Peter Kuehn, estimates that the additional sale of winter tea sold in special German tea stores was around a few hundred tons. With the total sales by retailers amounting to some 3,600 tons a year, this was indeed a "strong selling factor."

Goetz describes the high sales turnover of aroma flavored tea as a "Christmas blessing." Business was so good that many retailers hoped to wipe out the losses incurred by them in the earlier months. Tea sales in October had declined in some stores compared with the corresponding month of the previous year -- presumably because of the mild weather. The belief among German tea merchants is that the colder the weather gets, the more tea sells.

Tea importers and wholesalers agree that the consumption of tea in Germany has been declining for a few years. This was also confirmed by the Hamburg-based German Tea Office which organizes publicity for some 90% of the tea stores. The annual per capita consumption had declined in the past years by three grams to 224 grams. This quantity of tea corresponds to some 240 cups per person; in 1990, the consumption had been higher by three and a half cups. A total of 28,380 tons of black tea had been imported into Germany in 1994. The Germans spent some DM400 million for black tea in 1994. They also spent some DM400 million for black tea in 1994, according to Peter Fedder, the executive director of the German Tea Office.

On account of seasonal and other influences, tea consumption in the winter months is twice as much as in the summer months of Germany. This corresponds, on average, to 1.3 cups of tea each day. This quantity is not significant when compared to the average tea consumption by inhabitants of East Frisia in the northernmost part of Germany, who are considered to consume the most tea in Germany. The East Frisians drink as much as seven to eight cups of tea a day -- and that is outside of the Christmas season.