If I were opening a coffee shop tomorrow, I would not put twenty teas on the menu.
I would probably have six.
Maybe eight once matcha, chai and hojicha joined the party.
There is a temptation with tea to offer absolutely everything.
Bolder Breakfast.
Earl of Grey.
Assam.
Darjeeling.
Ceylon Orange Pekoe.
Sencha Green.
Japanese Cherry Green.
Mojito Mint.
Chamomile & Lavender.
Red Berry Burst.
Rhubarb Rooibos.
Jade Oolong.
White Peony.
Before you know it, you have fifteen tins behind the counter, your customers are staring at the menu and half the team has forgotten which tea is which.
More choice is not always better choice.
Most customers do not need a wall of tea.
They need enough choice to find something they genuinely want to drink.
Start with the classics
First, choose a brilliant Breakfast Tea.
This is the familiar one. The dependable one. And for many cafés, it will probably be the traditional tea you sell most.
Familiar does not have to mean boring.
Choose something with plenty of body and character that works beautifully with milk but still tastes great black.
Then add an Earl Grey.
Earl Grey drinkers know what they like, and they tend to be loyal to it. Look for one with a good balance between the tea and bergamot, where you can still taste both.
Two teas in and you have already covered a lot of customers.
Add something green
Next, I would choose one good green tea.
Sencha is a great place to start. It is fresh, clean and approachable, with enough character to offer something completely different from your black teas.
You can always expand the range later.
But if you are starting out, I would much rather see one brilliant green tea on a menu than four that nobody behind the counter can confidently describe.
Do not forget caffeine free
Give people a couple of genuinely good caffeine free choices.
I like having something warming and herbal, such as our Lemon & Ginger Rescue, alongside something fruitier or a good Rooibos.
This gives customers two very different directions to go in.
One fresh and comforting.
One bright and full of flavour.
Caffeine free should not feel like the compromise section of the menu.
It should contain teas people would choose because they actually want to drink them.
Give them something unexpected
Now there is room to have some fun.
Add a tea that people might not already know.
Perhaps an Oolong. Maybe White Peony. Or something else with enough character to start a conversation.
This is where your team can introduce customers to something new without presenting them with an enormous menu they need to decode first.
Someone might walk in planning to order their usual drink and leave having discovered a new favourite.
That is exactly what a good tea menu should be able to do.
Then bring in the new generation
This is where things get really interesting.
Matcha.
Chai.
Hojicha.
These drinks increasingly occupy their own space on modern café menus.
They can be hot. Iced. Made with different milks. Mixed with other flavours. Kept beautifully simple or taken somewhere completely new.
Add them to a well chosen core tea range and suddenly you have a non coffee menu that feels every bit as exciting as the coffee side.
There is tradition in there.
There is discovery.
There is colour.
There is character.
And there is plenty of room to play.
Make sure your team can talk about it
This might be the most important part.
You can have the best tea menu in the world, but it does not mean much if nobody behind the counter knows how to help a customer choose.
If someone asks:
“What is the difference between Sencha and Earl Grey?”
The answer should probably go a little further than:
“One is green.”
Your team does not need to become tea sommeliers overnight.
Give them a few simple things to remember about each tea.
What does it taste like?
Does it work well with milk?
Does it contain caffeine?
What would you recommend to someone who normally drinks Breakfast Tea?
What is the one interesting thing worth knowing about it?
A little knowledge makes it much easier to talk about tea with confidence.
It is one of the reasons we put so much emphasis on training with our café customers.
Keep it simple. Keep it interesting.
Tea is not complicated.
It has just spent far too long being presented that way.
A great café tea menu does not need twenty different options or an encyclopedia of tasting notes.
It needs a handful of genuinely good teas that offer different flavours, different moments and a few opportunities to discover something new.
Make it interesting enough for the person who really knows their tea.
Make it approachable enough for the person who normally orders an Americano.
And give your team enough knowledge to bring the whole thing to life.
Get that balance right and tea stops being the section at the bottom of the menu for people who do not want coffee.
It becomes something people come in for.