A spot of tea-riffic data to celebrate National Hot Tea month

Tea or coffee… the eternal question. In Canada, coffee comes out on top when it comes to food availability, but tea prices are rising at a faster pace than coffee. In 2022, there was enough tea available to provide every Canadian with just over one cup of hot tea per day. To celebrate National Hot Tea month, let’s steep in some tea data.

Coffee tops tea on store shelves

Very little tea is grown in Canada, but we imported nearly 50 000 tonnes of tea in 2022!

Our food availability release, which tracks the amount of food physically present in a country for consumption, shows that there was enough tea available in Canada in 2022 to brew 95 litres of tea per person. This was up from 85 litres a year earlier and the fourth consecutive annual increase for tea availability.

By way of comparison, just under 112 litres of coffee were available per person in Canada in 2022. This marked the second consecutive annual increase and the largest amount of coffee available per person on record.

Tea prices rising at a faster pace than coffee

Tea and coffee drinkers are paying more for their caffeine fix today than they were a year earlier.

In November 2023, prices for tea were up 3.8% compared with 12 months earlier, while prices for coffee were up 2.9%.

Higher sugar and syrup prices are not so sweet

Tea and coffee drinkers are also paying more for key ingredients.

In November 2023, prices for fresh milk were up 2.4% year over year, while prices for “other dairy products,” which includes cream, rose 4.2%.

One bitter note for tea and coffee drinkers is that sugar and syrup prices were up 9.0% year over year in November, almost double the 4.7% year-over-year increase for food purchased from stores during the month.