Tea & Coffee World Cup 2003

Tea & Coffee World Cup organized annually by Tea and Coffee Trade Journal, USA was hosted this year by Rome, Italy. The conference and exhibition took place in Fiera Di Roma Exhibition Center. The conference program included tea and coffee symposiums as well as the Italian Espresso Seminar.

Tea section included reports about the world supply of tea, major market development trends, toughening of the rules for tea promotion and chemical content of tea in EU, etc. One of the most interesting reports was devoted to tea and health with the scientific analysis of the truths and myths behind the tea and health hype.

The following facts about the world tea industry mentioned during the conference deserve the most attention:

For the last ten years the world supply of tea has been growing by 2% annually. The production volume of 3 billion kg was reached in 2001. India, China, Sri-Lanka and Kenya are still the main tea producing countries supplying over 70% of the international market while Russia, UK, Pakistan, USA and Egypt remain the major importers consuming more then 50% of the world export. Overproduction is the major factor determining the present world tea situation. However the overall demand has also grown and recovery and certain growth of the tea markets in Great Britain and UK were recently reported.

The coffee symposium mainly featured the reports of the Italian producing companies. Many of them were devoted to the truly Italian coffee – espresso.