Tea Report June 2015
UK
Wedgwood, the British luxury lifestyle brand, is launching a new tea room concept in three different formats.
The Wedgwood Tea Room will be a full service restaurant providing a premium all-day dining experience; The Tea Bar is designed for shorter visits and offers light bites and teas from the counter; and The Tea Emporium will be a retail space that allows consumers to sample teas before they purchase.
Each is founded on Wedgwood’s 250 years of heritage and will deliver a high quality experience with exclusive menus, beautiful interior décor and impeccable service. The company has been developing its tea business for many years and now offers a very special range of 50 tea blends. Every tea will be available through Wedgwood’s Tea Rooms and through a variety of high-end department stores and specialist food retailers worldwide.
The first Tea Bars opened in Shanghai and Hong Kong in 2014; the first Wedgwood Tea Rooms will launch in Summer 2015 in the UK, Mumbai, Taipei and Beijing; and there are plans to open 10 to 20 franchised locations each year with a target of 89 locations globally by 2019.
Wedgwood and tea have been inextricably linked since the mid-eighteenth century, when Queen Charlotte of England commissioned cream-colored earthenware (Queen’s Ware) and made Josiah Wedgwood ‘Potter to Her Majesty’. Throughout the centuries, Wedgwood has refined the style and shape of tea ware, becoming an authority and reference for the definitive English afternoon tea experience around the world.