A powerful way to study the relationships between different places is by observing the statistical information with regard to one product that affects different parts of the world. When it comes to tea, statistics are often hard to come by due to the fact that tea is a lucrative business, and any information collected by professional agencies are available only for a high price. Regardless of this fact, we can still gain a better understanding of how tea is a driving force in globalization by studying the general information available in terms of tea production/export and consumption.

Leading Countries in the Export of Tea (by percent of total tea exports)

From (Geography 2006, and World Map 2006)

 This map was compiled from statistical information regarding the export of tea worldwide (Geography 2006). The statistics are missing for both Taiwan and Japan even though those countries are considered to be significant producers and exporters of tea world-wide. There is also no date available for these statistics. Nevertheless, this information paints a very interesting picture regarding tea cultivation and export. The major contributors to the export of tea are either countries in which tea has been growing for many centuries or previous colonies which were used by trading companies as new sources of tea. It is also worth noting that only countries that lie in the equatorial belt cultivate tea. This is strictly because tea requires humid and hot climates for growth (The Stash Tea 2006). The Stash Tea Company prides itself on the exotic nature of its teas, and therefore it chooses to import teas primarily from China, Japan, India, and Sri Lanka, where tea has been cultivated for a long period of time historically, and therefore is considered to be of fine quality, and secondly because these countries sound exotic to a European and American market. Since the demand for exotic tea of high quality is on the rise, it is not surprising to see that most of the tea that is being produced in the world comes from Sri Lanka, China, India and other places where the tea cultivation science has been honed and where a western market is interested in buying its tea.

For a more in-depth look at the cultivation of tea please click here.

For a discussion on the way that tea is being marketed please click here.

The Statistics of Tea Consumption

This table contains a lot of information regarding the world-wide consumption of Tea in 1998 (Geography 2006). There are two major problems with this table. First of all, this table shows total consumption of tea per unit of tea, not per capita. Because India and China have huge populations, it becomes unclear as to how important tea really is to their cultures and economy. However this table does paint an interesting image of where tea is generally being consumed around the globe (at least in 1998). Below is a map rendering this information in a more visual form with additional information about the total population of each country in percent of the total population at that time. By comparing the percentage of tea consumption to the percentage of population for each country, we can deduce that the UK and Turkey are actually tea leaders in terms of relative percentage of tea consumed with respect to their populations. China and India have some of the lower ratios of tea consumed to total population (Geography 2006).

From (Geography 2006, and World Map 2006)