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| Koreans Are Crazy About Green Tea |
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Korea's green tea craze is only just beginning. No, really. It’s been a while since natural juices and the dreaded lactic-acid fermented beverages started replacing coffee and sodas as part of the well-being fad. Yet since late last year, no fewer than 20 domestic beverage manufacturers like Lotte Chilsung, Dongwon F&B and Dongsuh Food have been marketing a staggering 30 kinds of green tea beverages, creating a market worth about W30 billion (US$30 million). There had been a resurgent interest in tea, but now handy green tea beverages for consumers who find it too bothersome to boil the tea for themselves are flying off the shelves. “Green tea’s polyphenol is 100 times the anti-cancer agent that vitamin C is,” we amateur nutritionists are told. “Catechin gets rid of your body’s cholesterol, so it’s good for diets,” “The caffeine awakens your brain’s nerve centers and clears your head,” “The U.S. magazine Time counted green tea as one of the world’s top ten health food products” -- Green tea has secured so firm a place as a health food that even people who don’t drink it are familiar with all these data. Dongwon F&B, with its Bosung Green Tea brand, has cornered 40-50 percent of the market, but Donga-Otsuka’s “Green Time” claimed 13-20 percent of the market in just a year, while its Lotte Chilsung’s “Jirisan Fresh Green Tea” took 10 percent as soon as it hit the stores in July. Other companies were quick to follow. Haitai Beverage, Woongjin Foods, Nongshim, Namyang Dairy and other companies introduced their own green tea beverages. Vegemil created “Green Tea Vegemil” -- killing two birds with one stone -- while Maeil Dairy added a hard-to-imagine green tea-based Tea Latte to its Café Latte series. Tea market doubles in three years But beverages are just the tip of the iceberg. Baskin-Robbins, Häagen-Dazs, Natuur, Binggrae and Lotte have all given us green tea ice creams, and there are also green tea cookies and green tea candies out there. Haitai Confectionery and Foods introduced its green tea cookie “Calorie Balance” as a breakfast substitute in December, which is getting good reports from women in their 20s, recording W2 billion in sales in just two months. Even “guksu” noodles, instant noodles, red pepper paste, traditional liquors and cosmetics are using green tea. Soap and cosmetics with green tea extract, and bath salts and face wash with green tea are hugely popular with young women. For quite some time, a growing number of restaurant customers have been asking for green tea rather than coffee. Korea’s green tea market has surpassed the W200 billion mark. In four years, it has doubled. It’s now roughly the size of the mineral water market, and tea sales are greater than those for soy sauce, tofu and cheese. According to National Statistical Office materials from 2003, green tea production was W178 billion, and black tea production was at W20 billion. Compared to 2001, when green tea production was W70 billion, that was an increase of 2.5 times, and an average annual growth rate of 15 percent -- and that was two years ago. But compared to world per capita tea consumption of 500 g, Korea's is tiny with only 38 g. Looked at in an international context, Korea’s green tea craze is like a newborn child. If we could drink even half as much tea as the Japanese, who drink 1,000 g per person, our tea market would exceed W1 trillion -- more than double the current Korean market for coffee. Source: chosun.com May 8, 05 |
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