Yahoo Finance Is Britain's love affair with tea cooling?
Is Britain’s love affair with tea over? Well, it may well be among millennials.
While older people continue to spend heavily on tea, the balance has shifted increasingly in favour of coffee among younger people.
People between the age of 50 and 64 spend £31.20 on tea annually, but for millennials this drops to £10.40, according analysis of ONS statistics by financial planner Tilney.
Currently, the average household spends £1,475 on tea over a lifetime, but this figure looks likely to fall if the current trend continues.
Tea, traditionally the UK’s preferred hot drink, is already way behind coffee in terms of household spend, with the average family forking out £2,585 on coffee over the course of their lives, and millennials spending £31.20 annually.
[graphiq id=”aL2Nhct0Av3″ title=”Tea – Nutrition Overview” width=”600″ height=”441″ url=”https://w.graphiq.com/w/aL2Nhct0Av3″ link=”https://www.graphiq.com” link_text=”Visualization by Graphiq” ]
In its Cost of Tomorrow report, Tilney also reveals we still splash a staggering amount on hot drink accompaniments, with households spending £1,249 on sugar and £7,381 on milk in a lifetime.
We also treat ourselves to a hefty £11,520 worth of cakes, buns and biscuits to complement our favourite hot drinks; 4.2% more than we spend on fresh fruit (£11,034) over a lifetime.
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The typical UK household spends £1.9m over the course of a lifetime, says Tilney.
The average adult will hit the £1m household spending milestone at the age of 50, and still face the prospect of £893,500 of spending in later life.
Almost half of this, £420,500, will be incurred during retirement (65+). But pre-retirees, aged 45 to 65, are underestimating retirement spending by £100,000, exposing the pressure their savings and investments may come under in later life.
“The sums we spend over our lifetimes when quantified in today’s prices seem mind-bogglingly large, and yet they reflect the reality of life in Britain today,” said Andy Cowan, head of financial planning at Tilney.
“But while some of today’s retirees are in a position to enjoy recreation and achieve their desired lifestyle, those coming behind face significant pressures on retirement income and much greater uncertainty because of the demise of traditional, predictable final salary pensions, and must overcome a number of hurdles if they want to ensure they can live with financial security in their own retirement.”
Time for a cuppa?
According to the Tea Council, tea was introduced to the UK in the mid-1600s by Catherine of Braganza, queen to King Charles II.
Tradition has it that afternoon tea was ‘invented’ by Anna Maria, the wife of the seventh Duke of Bedford.
In 1841, she started drinking tea and having a bite to eat in the mid-afternoon, to tide her over during the long gap between lunch (eaten at about 1pm) and dinner (eaten at about 7pm).
Now, Britons consume about 165 million cups of tea a day – we down about 70 million cups of coffee. Some 96% of tea is made from tea bags.
