Commercials: Coffee vs Tea

I am increasingly realizing how absurdly outpaced tea ads are by coffee ads. Even in the 1980s (before specialty coffee was popular), there was this Coffee Association Commercial featuring celebrities like David Bowie. More recently, there have been a number of ads in the U.S. and the rest of the Western world featuring coffee as a drug-like substance that is either necessary to function or illicit and (therefore) sexy. Examples:

WNBA coffee commercial makes coffee look like the key to a successful life and links it to skill in sports.

European coffee commercial features coffee as a necessary supplement for daily functioning.

Eastern European (possibly Russian?) Starbucks commercial makes life without coffee absurd and potentially dangerous.

Secret society coffee commercial shows a sexy, exclusive side of coffee.

Cinderella coffee shows coffee as romantic and fated.

How do Western tea ads compete?

Snapple white tea ad portrays tea as simple. (Seriously? Come on...)

Spanish tea commercial shows tea as whimsical. (Meh.)

Lipton ice tea ad makes tea seem like a feel-good, taste-good choice (and is my favorite of the tea Western commercials I've found for that reason).

A different Lipton commercial shows tea as a Zen mind-body-spirit lifter and as an escape from the everyday. (Not bad.)

Lipton also shows tea as refreshing, psychedelic and even sexy, which puts it in competition with coffee. That's important in markets like Portugal (where it was screened and coffee is more prevalent than tea).

From what I can tell, this Pickwick tea ad shows tea as Zen yet urgent. I think it's funny if you know the language (I don't), but it shows a monk grimacing when he sips the tea at the end. (SALES FAIL. ... Or tea and casting fail? Perhaps it's that bad and the guy can't act through the immense badness.)

Of course, there are some cool tea commercials coming out of Asia (notably the weird Mugi-Cha commercial and the cute caterpillar commercial), but these days there are even better Asian coffee ads:

Celebrity coffee ad shows coffee as desirable and more important to reporters than what a famous person has to say.

David Lynch coffee commercial makes coffee mysterious and (seemingly) more important than a missing woman. (There's a whole series of these on YouTube.)

And... Brad Pitt is in not one but TWO Japanese coffee commercials. Need I say more?

Beyond just ads, a popular South Korean drama is based in a coffee shop run by actor/model heartthrob Gong Yoo. (Here, he's in a coffee ad, but re: the show... Talk about product placement!) In Asia, coffee has become hip, edgy, alluringly exotic, cool. Too bad tea hasn't managed to do that on a bigger level here yet!

Tea industry, we have to be able to compete! These ads are WAY better than our ads and (as you can see) they've been around for much longer (in the U.S.) and are way edgier (around the world). Part of the issue is money, as you can learn in somebody's Powerpoint presentation on coffee advertising budgets, but part of it is an issue of cultural identification. We need to finally embrace the idea that tea is cool (at least in the U.S.)! After all, which is the unusual, exotic beverage (in the U.S.)? Which makes you feel better for longer? Which is embraced by tech rock stars like Kevin Rose? Which is the beverage of choice of foodies in-the-know? We can do this, people. I want to see innovation! After all, you weren't attracted to tea because it was the same-old thing, right? Why make commercials that make it seem like something boring that you only drink for health? Or just another goofy ad for another random product?

(Side note one: I'll probably post some weird tea commercials from Asia soon. (There are plenty to choose from.) Look out for it!

Side note two: If you can't do ads, at LEAST do press releases. Don't have time? I write them. Contact me at vee (at) veetea (dot) com for details.)

Tea in Film

I recently asked my Twitter peeps about their favorite movie scenes involving tea. Here are their responses:

Winnie at Teance said, "the scene in Fearless with Jet Li before the fight is good."

HonestTea said, "The Mad Hatter's tea party from AliceinWonderland!"

JeeJuno said, "Karen and Felicity drink tea in a scene from Out of Africa, not a grand scene, but a GRAND movie!!"

dcbuck said, "The only scene I can even think of is the bit from the second Karate Kid movie just before the very dramatic storm sets in."

Also, thetearooms linked this segment on tea at Harrods. (I visited Harrods' tea department when I was in London. Fantastic!) The film clip includes an amusing (and very dated) segment on how to brew tea with a teabag. YouTube kindly led me to this old film how to brew tea with information that's (mostly) still relevant today. (I love the use of the words "tea juice" throughout...)

What's your favorite movie scene involving tea? Seen any interesting old tea films lately?

iPhones for Tea

My iPhone died over the weekend. I have been a Mac user for as long as I can remember and I never had any problems with my computers or my first generation iPhone. Also, I use it for my business quite a bit -- calls, texts, email, interview recordings, photos.... I need this phone pretty much any time I want to get work done. Fortunately, when I took it to the Apple store, they were AWESOME! Great customer service. They replaced my iPhone within an hour, despite the fact that I didn't have an appointment and they were slammed with customers. No hassle, no rudeness, just support. I wish more companies ran like that! It made me respect Apple all the more.

Apparently, Apple thinks my kind of business is pretty cool, too... or at least something their customers would be into. A new iPhone commercial features the operation of a tea business as an example of how you can use your iPhone.

Kevin Rose Tea Interview

At the World Tea Expo, I had the pleasure of interviewing a number of tea celebs. The interviews will be popping up on World Tea News over the following weeks. Here's the first of the interviews I conducted: talking tea with Kevin Rose of digg.com. More soon!

Random Fun Links, Part Two

Here are a few more random, fun and vaguely tea-related links. Enjoy!

Hot Tea/"Hottie" T-Shirt (Fans of Arrested Development may remember Lucille making the same pun about, ahem, Buster's Dad. *Queue music*)

Broken English Tea Packaging... Winning.

Top Tea Cocktail on LA Weekly

Jeremiah Weed Sweet Tea (This stuff got me into trouble when I got a round of it -- and won a t-shirt and hat -- at my local music trivia night last week. It's dangerous! Here are some Vee Tea tea cocktails, in case you want to make your own dangerous tea-based beverages.)

This tea steeps in your mouth. I'm kind of horrified.

Of Montreal's Id Engager has a teapot (among many other things. Can you find it?

Join the Tea-V Set. Join the Vee Tea Set!

Pots de Creme with Matcha Stars Yum!

Have a link to add? Post it below or email it to me at VEE _at_ VEETEA _dot_ COM.

World Tea Expo

This post is dedicated to the World Tea Expo. It was, as usual, fantastic. Here are a few highlights from my week in Vegas, from the Expo and otherwise:

Seeing so many tea people -- I love learning about what everyone is up to, talking tea and connecting with people and ideas in the industry. Connections took the forms of chatting between classes, touring the show floor, interviewing like mad, holding a TweetUp, sending the obligatory "where are you now" texts to find fellow attendees... I only wish I'd had more time to spend with everyone!

Trying new teas -- ITO EN's new shincha (sold out already), Hawaii-grown teas from Sherri Miller, oolongs from Teas, Etc. and much more... Along with the people, this is one of my favorite things about the Expo each year!

Interviews -- I held about two dozen interviews over the course of the Expo. Some were informal talks, some were sit-down-with-a-recorder interviews and some were video interviews. The videos were with notables like James Norwood Pratt, Jane Pettigrew, Bruce Richardson, Kevin Rose and Steve Schwartz. They'll start showing up on World Tea News soon.

Classes -- My favorite class was Rona Tison's Japanese green tea cupping course. Tasty! A few of my other favorites were with Charles Cain (TeaGschwendner USA), Michale Cramer (Adagio) and Elisabeth Knottingham (The Teacup in Seattle, WA), who held a fantastic class on hiring and keeping great employees.

Leaving the Strip -- Sometimes Vegas is just so... Vegas-y. This year, I got off the strip on a few occasions. Downtown Vegas' First Friday with my husband, my World Tea News boss and her husband (and his beautiful flower shop, set to open soon) was fantastic. Red Rock Canyon was gorgeous! And tapas with the Gamila Teastick crew was was tastier (and cheaper) than most of the strip fare.

What was your favorite part of the Expo? What are you looking forward to about next year?

Random Fun Links, Part One?

None of these warrant a full post on their own, so I bring you: RANDOM FUN LINKS

This is probably part one in an ongoing series of me being too lazy to write cohesive blog posts because I'm too busy writing even less cohesive articles and copy. (I hope I'm kidding about that last part, but too busy to know for sure!)

This book is awesome. Read it.

Good Magazine says tea is more sustainable than coffee. Rad.

I officially declare this the cutest tea packaging of all time.

Bryan Stafford gets added to the World Tea News blogger list. Welcome!

Samovar on How to Get Into Tea. Forward it to the uninitiated.

The World Tea Expo is NEXT WEEK. I'll be there. Will you?

This message was brought to you by...
a giant tea cozy.

Enjoy your tea!

Tea Chemistry

In honor of the Chinese New Year here's a cool video on tea chemistry with a New Years angle. It covers some very cool aspects of tea chemistry that I think even the non-geeks out there can enjoy.

EDIT TO ADD -- PS -- Teance is having a two-day, free-shipping sale on orders over $60. Enter the code "CNYFREE" on January 30 and 31 for free shipping. They recommend the following as Chinese New Years gifts:

Yunnan Gold
Yellow Gold Oolong
Osmanthus Oolong
Flower Bouquet
Pu-Erh 15 Year Aged

SNL "Tea Break"

Saturday Night Live recently had a skit about an "Extreme Activities Competition," during which two contestants battled in tasks like balancing a hat on his/her head and pinning a chair down by sitting on it. Of course, this is humorous because there are so many absurd "extreme" shows out there, and this skit is pitting people against each other in activities like "acting casual." In the middle of the competition, they take a tea break. To me, this says a lot about tea in American culture. It's the antithesis of the extreme sport lifestyle, a way to relax and notice the everyday things, like acting casual and even walking. The obvious internet counterpoint to this is Powerthirst: Energy Drinks for People Who Need Gratuitous Amounts of Energy. Why do you need to win at yelling, anyway? Win at contemplation, or happiness, or observation. Win at TEA.

Vampire Weekend and Tea

So, at this point, everyone has gone completely nuts over Vampire Weekend, and there has been indie backlash (as there usually is in the cases of meteoric rises to fame in the "indie rock" world). Many have noted the obvious Paul Simon influence (I think they took a cue from Mark Mothersbaugh's solo work, and Wes Anderson's directorial influence can be seen in their video for Oxford Comma -- very appropriate given the similar cultural milieu that produced Anderson and his usual scorewriter, Mothersbaugh), but have any of you dear readers noticed their connections to tea?

These preppy Columbia-educated rockers seem to partake of the stuff rather regularly, but still seem to be lacking in their knowledge about it. In the video for "Mansard Roof," they relax and play music on a sailboat, taking time out of their navigation around Manhattan and New Jersey for tea in their Brooks Brothers casual wear.* They are clearly enjoying the salty air and the (most likely) tannic brew, but do they even know what they're drinking? (OK, OK, yes, tea... But beyond that!)

In the lyrics for "One (Blake's Got a New Face)" they actually say, "English breakfast tastes like Darjeeling." What?!?! No, it really doesn't! Sure, both are black teas, but beyond that there isn't much similarity. English Breakfast was traditionally a blend of Assam and sometimes strong Ceylon teas (later on), but now is generally a strong, astringent brew that most enjoy with milk and sugar. Darjeeling teas, on the other hand, are typically either delicate and floral (first flush) or complex, with muscat notes (second flush), and neither benefits at all from milk OR sugar (in my strong opinion). They are not similar at all. (This goes way beyond the Coke-Pepsi debate, I tell you. It's a whole other level of difference, more like Coke-Sprite.) Perhaps they're overbrewing the Darjeeling? Or overpowering both with milk and sugar? (Maybe they should take one of my tea classes!)

Of course, on the positive side, their fans are looking more into tea when they look into the lyrics. SongMeanings.net included comments like, "english breakfast and darjeeling are both teas! i just learned that today." I wonder if any of them will actually try the Vampire Weekend-endorsed teas, and perhaps even notice that they do NOT, in fact, taste all that similar. We can only hope... :)

*The Guardian has an amusing take on the video.

Tea Blender Interview

At the NYC Coffee and Tea Festival, I had the pleasure of meeting Nini Ordoubadi, tea blender and founder of TAY TEA. She mainly blends rooibos, which she acquired a passion for while visiting her husband's family in South Africa, and is known for her innovative flavor profiles and, ahem, unusual names. ("Better Than Sex" is one of her attention-grabbers.) I just learned that she has designed an artisanal tea collection for Henri Bendel. Exciting! The signature tea line includes:

Little Black Dress (black)
Bendel Rose (black)
Girl's Playground (green)
Bendelicious (green)
Safe Sex (rooibos)
Morning After (herbal)

Watch this great interview on tea blending with Nini from Revel in New York, a video blog that does fascinating profiles on noteworthy New Yorkers, to learn more about Nini's approach to tea and (with tea) life.

September Wagashi

My good friend, video blogger Tajee, recently visited me from Tokyo and gave me some delicious September-themed wagashi, which includes images of rabbits and an orange moon. They're filled with rice paste and they're oishi (delicious), especially with Japanese green tea!

The wrapping was, as one might expect from a gift wrapped in Japan, gorgeous. Here's the outer wrapper with images of rabbits and the moon:



The second layer, with images of (and I'm guessing here) flowers and grasses (Please let me know if you think otherwise):



The simpler and quite lovely inner box, with text that most likely says the brand and/or product name:











Thanks, Tajee for the fantastic visit, and for the tasty wagashi!!! It was great to see you (as always!) and I hope to visit you in Japan soon!!!

PS -- I'm going to be posting about tea sweets all week. Between a few samples, the gift from Tajee and a box of wagashi I opened in preparation for my classes at Urasenke Chanoyu, I'm on a tea sweets kick!

Green Tea Girlie

So, I was doing some research for the series I've been working on for World Tea News about tea and sugar, and I happened upon the strangest thing. There's this YouTube weirdness from a woman calling herself Green Tea Girlie. Have you heard of it? Very weird... She does silly dances, tells rambling stories and tries to sell green tea/fruit powder. Most of them appear to be dances, but here's an especially weird video: The Going Green Song.
She's also referenced on a rather amusing (but very long) cooking show parody about baking green tea cookies in a trailer park (which is the first time I heard of her and just HAD to look her up). Ah, YouTube.

Olympics Tea

A recent visit to one of my favorite tearooms gave me the chance to see a 2008 Olympics pu-erh cake for the first time. Pu-erh cakes can be used to commemorate all kind of occasions, from the Olympics to royal weddings to births to trade agreements. As pu-erh becomes more collectible worldwide, these kinds o commemorative cakes are likely to gain popularity. For this year's Olympics, even Coca Cola got in on the commemorative action. Crazy!

Seven Cups Tearoom, makers of the fantastic Seven Cups video podcast series, thought of a different way to celebrate the Olympics and tea in their Denver location: a competitive tea taste-a-thon. Winners receive Gold Medal Honey Orchid ea, Silver Needle or Iron Arhat Rock Oolong. Cool!

UK Day

For some reason, I feel like talking about the UK today. Perhaps it's because I recently saw this funny little Cultural Guide to the UK that features tea (and is by the guy who did the Radiohead dot matrix printer remix). Or maybe the BBC tea documentary I saw in a fellow blogger's post the other day. Or the British dim sum menu (complete with hot tea, iced tea and tea cocktails) that my Londoner sister sent me last week. Or even the fact that I keep meaning to update my articles on afternoon tea and high tea with information from helpful British readers and from Ellen Easton's NYC Coffee & Tea Festival lecture and book "Afternoon Tea... Tips, Terms and Traditions." (Soon, soon...) Or the responses from people who read my recent Tea & Sympathy tearoom review, saying things like "I totally LOLed" (which I find to be a very humorous cultural juxtaposition in and of itself). At any rate, I suppose I've talked about it now. Readers, care to add anything? Interesting links? A story or two?

Tea Videos

First, tea companies got websites. Then, some took the extra step and started blogs or forums. Now, the big thing is video. From YouTube's many flowering tea vids and ceremony demos to Twinings' and Dr. Tea's video posts and even various organizations' tea video competitions, tea videos are hot. As someone with a video editing background (I edited videos and animations through high school and college), I can't say I'm disappointed! Though it's not new, video is an exciting and vibrant medium. You can convey huge amounts of information quickly while keeping it easy (and even fun) to understand. I'm glad to say that I'll be taking a new step in the tea video world soon. I've been interviewed by the local TV news as a "tea expert" and I've worked with a professional video editor to make a video of my footage from India for an Indian tea tasting event, but this week I'm writing and narrating a tea video for Urbana Cityspa & Teabar to post on Citysearch. Fun! It seems that most tearooms have so much to share and simply lack the means to get it out there. I hope to work with other tearooms on similar projects in the near future--let's get those stories and unique features out there!

07/02/08--Update!
Oregon Chai has announced a new video contest. Here's how to compete for Digital Nirvana.

Tea Scholarship

The Tea Council of the USA has launched their second annual "Calm-A-Sutra of Tea" national scholarship competition. They are asking for submissions of 1-2 minute videos that portray a creative/unique way of drinking tea and highlight at least one of tea's many health benefits. The winner will receive a $20,000 scholarship (and have tea and go on the news with some celebrity I've never heard of before). Here's last year's winning tea video. Learn more on The Tea Council's site.

PS--Here's another tea video submission that didn't win last year, but I thought it was cute. Check it out!

Tea Videos

Three are tons of tea videos on the internet. I've posted some of them before. Here are a few more. If there's one you'd like me to see, send me the link!

James Norwood Pratt on tea on Chow.com

A tragic love story about tea bags, feat. The Cure

"Good Eats" on tea

Have a good weekend and be sure to drink lots of tea!

In NC

Still in my home state, North Carolina. I had the most amazingly de-stressing hot stone massage the other day... one of the many perks in doing events with a teabar/spa! The video editing for the (Indian-tea-themed) event is coming along very well. (One of the many benefits of having a good friend who happens to be a professional video editor.)

It's hard to believe it has been more than a month since I left India! Seeing all the footage is making me miss it all the more. Still hoping to return soon.

I've been tasting more teas for the company I'm working with. Heavenly. I even found a flowering tea with a taste that would make it worth drinking even if it weren't gorgeous! (I find this to be quite a feat. Most flowering teas are much more of a treat for the eyes than they are for the tastebuds.) I'm looking forward to trying the rest of their flowering line over the next few days.

Well, I'm off to grab a late dinner with an old friend (Indo-Chinese food). I'll be back on Monday with a more coherent post.

YouTube Tea Videos

Looking to waste some time? YouTube has some tea videos you might enjoy.

Funny:
Tea Rap 1
Tea Rap 2 (a response to SNL's "Lazy Sunday," skip it if you are offended by gratuitous language)
"I want the best tealeaves."


Educational/Travel:
The Way of Tea
Pu-erh Factory
Yunnan Province

Beautiful:
Flowering Tea 1
Flowering Tea 2

Musical:
Tea for Two (check the links on this one, there are a lot of variations on the right-hand side)

Weird:
Drinking Tea in Space

I'm off to Boston and Maine for the weekend. I hope you're doing something exciting, too, even if it is exploring teh interweb.