Tea trend overflowing for variety of reasons

Lisa Sciortino

Tuesday, April 9, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Don't look for tea's popularity to lose its steam anytime soon.

In fact, it'll probably just get hotter, according to Pearl Dexter, editor and co-publisher of Tea: A Magazine, based in Connecticut.

"My feeling is that ... after the fast-paced '80s, Americans have finally realized that, to have any quality in their lives, they've got to slow down a little," she says.

And with the re-emergence of traditional teatime as a way to unwind while socializing, tea "has a more alluring appeal, not that it should be a snobbish appeal," she says.

"It's not the same as the hurried 'Let me stop and get a Styrofoam cup of coffee.' If you take the time and really tune in, all of the senses have an important role."

Most recently, the beverage has been steeped in medical reports touting its health benefits, such as lowering the risk of strokes and its lower caffeine content than coffee. "All types of tea are healthy," she says.

Healthier for your pocketbook, too. "It's probably the cheapest luxury that we can find," says Dexter's husband and the 2-year-old magazine's other publisher, James Churchill Streeter. "You can get a really good pot of tea for pennies per cup."

And the varieties are endless -- green, oolong, Darjeeling, rose, jasmine. Black tea, Dexter says, is most popular in the Western world.

Just like a connoisseur of fine wines, though, "When your palate becomes sophisticated enough to enjoy those different tastes ... you choose to have the best," she says.

And Dexter has. The 47-year-old started drinking tea during her teens and became a serious sipper while living in England during her '20s.

However, "I still drink a cup of Lipton's occasionally," she admits. "I probably always will, because when I was a child, that red and yellow box was on our shelf all the time."