World Tea Expo 2025

As the trend for non-alcoholic beverages grows, café and tea business owners have a golden
opportunity to enhance their offerings and appeal to a more educated and health-conscious clientele. Join Dr. CJ Sugita-Jackson, a Certified Nutritionist, Master Herbalist, and expert tea blender, for an engaging workshop designed to elevate your drink menu and boost your business.
"Mastering the Art of Mocktails: Boost Your Business with Innovative Drink Menus" is tailored for businesses without a liquor license but eager to tap into the lucrative mocktail market. This session will provide you with the knowledge and inspiration to create a premium, high-priced mocktail menu that draws in discerning customers seeking sophisticated, non-alcoholic options.
Key highlights include:

• Understanding Your Audience: Learn how to identify and cater to the preferences of health-conscious and sophisticated consumers.
• Menu Design Principles: Discover the secrets to creating a balanced and appealing mocktail menu, incorporating seasonal and locally-sourced ingredients to elevate your offerings.
• Live Mocktail Demonstrations: Watch Dr. Sugita-Jackson demonstrate several innovative mocktail recipes, and enjoy tasting these unique creations to inspire your menu development.
• Marketing Strategies: Gain insights into effective marketing techniques, including social media tips and influencer collaborations, to attract a high-value customer base.
• Physical Takeaways: Leave with recipe cards, ingredient lists, and other takeaways to kickstart your mocktail offerings.

Whether you’re a café owner or tea shop manager, this workshop will provide actionable strategies to enhance your business and delight your customers with premium non-alcoholic beverages.

a Crémant: Redefining Luxury in Non-Alcoholic Gastronomy
Tea-based RTDs are redefining the non-alcoholic wine category, offering a sophisticated alternative that preserves the complexity and indulgence of fine wines while seamlessly integrating into the refined atmosphere of high-end dining and hospitality. With their carefully crafted complexity, layered flavors, and elegant textures, tea crémants provide a premium experience that appeals to discerning guests. Their wellness-driven appeal, rich in antioxidants and low in sugar, aligns with the growing demand for health-conscious indulgence. Perfectly suited for food pairings, curated menus, and elevated beverage programs, tea crémants bring innovation to the forefront of luxury dining and hospitality, offering a unique way to enhance the guest experience and set establishments apart.

TAKEAWAYS:

1. Beyond Dealcoholization: A New Approach
   
2. Elevating Non-Alcoholic Beverages Without Imitation
   
3. Meeting the Growing Demand for Sophisticated Options
   
4. Tea as a Terroir-Driven Beverage
   
5. A New Chapter for Tea in the Culinary World
   

Since the late 90s tea taster Kevin Gascoyne of Camellia Sinensis has been selling teas, consulting start-ups, creating tea-menus and developing training programs for the hospitality industry.   From the Ma and Pa corner café to the elaborate curated collections of Michelin star restaurants and everything in between.  He explores the romance and realities, the complexities and logistics of serving good tea in a spectrum of hospitality settings.

Takeaways:

1. Realistic Tea Service Plans
2. How to Up Your Service Game
3. Essential Elements of a Good Tea Menu

China, the cradle and “motherland” of tea, boasts a long history and profound culture of tea planting, processing, and drinking. Throughout this development, our diligent and wise ancestors continuously invented new techniques for tea planting, processing, and brewing.
The most authentic and traditional Chinese teas are categorized into six basic types, known as the “Six Major Tea Categories” by tea professionals. As market demand continues to grow, it is essential to educate tea merchants, professionals, and our expanding community of tea drinkers about these categories. Through this forum at the tea expo, we aim to clarify misconceptions and correct misunderstandings regarding tea types, business practices, and consumption.
In the West, consumers are generally familiar with green tea, black tea, and Pu-erh tea. However, following recent trends in Chinese tea culture, more people are becoming aware of white tea and oolong tea. Each of these major categories includes representative and renowned subcategories, which will be a key topic of our discussions.
Additionally, different types of tea are produced through various processing methods, each requiring specific brewing techniques.

Three Takeaways: 
1. Brief History of Tea Drinking.
2. China’s authentic and traditional basic categories of teas—six major tea categories: Green tea, White tea, Yellow tea, Oolong tea, Black tea, Dark tea.
3. Brewing methods for different teas—water temperature, tea amount, brewing/steeping time.

Alcoholic Tea Beverages
In the evolving landscape of the beverage industry, understanding consumer preferences is key to staying ahead. This presentation dives deep into the intricate world of consumer drivers that shape beverage choices by exploring three main drivers: health, psychological drivers, and flavor trends.
Health drivers are increasingly influencing consumer choices, with a growing demand for beverages that offer functional benefits, such as low-calorie options, fortified drinks, and alcohol alternatives. We will analyze how health-conscious trends are reshaping the market and driving innovation in both alcoholic and non-alcoholic segments.
Psychological drivers, including the role of emotional connections and social influences, play a significant role in beverage preferences. This section will examine how brand perception, marketing strategies, and consumer experiences shape purchasing decisions and loyalty. Flavor drivers remain a cornerstone of consumer satisfaction. By exploring emerging flavor trends, their origins, and consumer drivers, this presentation will highlight how unique and diverse flavor profiles can captivate consumers and create lasting impressions. Attendees will gain actionable insights into leveraging these consumer drivers to develop strategies that cater to evolving preferences, ensuring success in both retail and food service settings.
 
Objectives:  
• Investigate emerging flavor trends, showcasing how innovative and diverse flavor profiles can captivate and retain customers
• Explore the psychological drivers, including emotional connections and social influences to understand how they shape consumer behavior
• Analyze how health-conscious trends are influencing consumer preferences for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages