Is Your Tea Choice as Unique as

Your Mental Wellbeing?

Monday 12th January is Brew Monday 2024, a Samaritans campaign to remind everyone to reach out for a cuppa and a catch-up with people we care about. Having strong connections with loved ones and the people we care about is vital for our mental wellbeing.

How we deal with our mental wellbeing and how we wish to engage with people and professionals in support is personal and often unique. This is why at Thrive Mental Wellbeing, our users are able to determine how they receive the support they need. Not everyone is comfortable in a call or video call, some prefer chat. Some are happier to engage when they can see or speak to a person. That is why our therapy and solutions are unique to our industry - because we are unique. We allow users to engage how they wish, in a way that works for them and furthermore our treatment continues until the desired outcome is achieved. That outcome is always positive mental wellbeing and mental health.

We therefore consider Brew Monday a great campaign and an excellent way to improve communication with the people we care about. After all, Brits love a good cuppa. In fact, we drink 100 million cups of tea daily: that's 36 billion cups yearly. 

That got us thinking…is our choice of how we take our tea as unique as how we would approach our mental health? Could sitting down with a cuppa be more than just the talking, but the comfort of sipping our favourite type of brew?

To find out, we commissioned a short survey to find out if our tea choices are as unique as we are and to discover if there are any trends in how we choose to drink our tea. The results were really interesting.

How do you drink yours?

There are common themes when making our favourite brew: sweet, milky, black, or strong tea. If you make tea regularly for yourself and your loved ones or a tea round at work, you will know that the choice of how we drink our tea seems almost as unique as we are.

However, we were keen to determine if geographical factors are at play, such as where we live or whether our gender or age impacts our tea-drinking habits. So, in December 2023, we surveyed Brits across the country how they prefer their tea…so what did we find out?

Most popular tea

The most popular cuppa in the UK is a regular strength tea with NO sugar. We would all have assumed this is the case, however the trend of no sugar is more recent and reflects the cultural change to a healthier diet across society. One lump or two may be a much less common phrase in new generations.

Regular strength tea, in general – with milk but not milky and not too strong, is the most popular tea across the nation, accounting for nearly a third (31%) of all tea consumers in the UK.

Least popular tea

Black tea appears to be the least popular tea in the UK after flavoured teas. In fact, only 4% of Brits like sweet black tea, and 7% like black tea with no sugar.

It is interesting to note the changes in diet worldwide as many people have moved away from dairy milk. Our survey didn't ask which milk people prefer. Still, it can be assumed that the 11% drinking black tea may have chosen to do so based on intolerance as well as just flavour preference.

Does location make any difference to our choice of tea?

We were keen to understand if geographical differences might affect how we drink our tea. To that end, we asked each of our respondents to let us know which region and country of the UK they were from so we could take a look.

The Scots are milky tea drinkers – bucking the UK-wide trend. In fact, Scottish people were equally split on whether they had tea with sugar or not, at 17% for each. However, unlike the more common trend of regular strength tea in the UK, over a third of all Scots are milky tea drinkers!

In London, it is the opposite. Only 3% of Londoners like their tea milky – a sixth compared to the Scotland trend. In fact, according to our survey, if you live in London, you are more likely to prefer your tea strong and sweet. Londoners are also more likely to have black sweet tea – double that of the national trend at 8%.

In the East Midlands, South East and South West, they match the trend of preferring regular strength tea with no sugar, but more significantly than any other place in the UK. In fact, around a quarter prefer their tea this way than any other at 25%, 24% and 24% consecutively. There is no budging these regions on their preferences.

If you live in Northern Ireland, you might be questioning the number of people putting milk and sugar in their tea, as nearly a fifth (19%) of you prefer black tea with no sugar, and hardly anyone likes tea with sugar.

Wales and Scotland are also milky tea drinkers – preferring milk in most of their tea. But the Welsh may be less worried about their sugar intake, leading the nation on milky sweet tea, with over 22% citing this as their favourite brew.

Conclusion:

It can be assumed that our geographical location influences how we drink our tea. It is interesting to see the trends in tea drinking across the regions and countries of the UK. As a nation, we often refer to the north/south divide, and whilst there are some trend differences, we are much more alike than not. Interestingly, the geographical differences between the devolved nations could show how the different countries of the UK have evolved over time. What do you think? Does this relate to you?

Does our preference for tea change as we age?

Another area we were keen to explore was whether our tea preferences change as we age. It is commonly known that our tastes change as we age due to a reduction in the regeneration of taste buds – but as this is not a scientific study, we wanted to see if we could spot any social differences or commonalities based on just a choice of tea. So, what did we find?

According to our survey, black tea is the most common when we are younger. In fact, a third of all 18–24-year-olds said they preferred black tea over any variation with milk. This was divided between 12% black with no sugar and 11% black with sugar.

Regular Strength, No Sugar is the most popular tea in the UK. Still, it has a rather exciting trend as it rises in popularity as we age. We found that only 6% of 18–24-year-olds are likely to have their tea this way, rising to nearly a quarter (23%) of 55–64-year-olds and almost a third (32%) in those 65 and over.

Milky and Sweet tea bucks the trend for those aged between 18 and 34. However, as we age, we are less likely to have sugar in our tea, at 7% between the ages of 55 and 64 and only 5% for those over 65.

Sweet Teas: According to our survey, sugar remains popular in tea for young people at 58%. However, this switches after age 55, where 58% don't take sugar at all.

Milky Tea bucks all the trends. At a younger age, we prefer milky tea with no sugar. However, the trend has switched, and milky tea with sugar has become more popular with age. If you are over 55, milky tea is the only tea with sugar you prefer.

Strong, sweet tea: Interestingly, strong tea with sugar (Builder's tea) is favoured more between the ages of 35 and 44, significantly more than any other age group.

Conclusion:

While some of these trends would be expected scientifically due to physiological factors, some interesting elements are at play here. Younger people are often referred to as being "sweet-toothed", and this is evident in this survey as sugar preferences differ. Strong tea is generally more prevalent between the ages of 35 and 54. Is this because of the change in taste bud production, or does this relate to the popularity and marketing around tea at the end of the last century, which inadvertently bucked the trend of tea preferences? We may never know, but it would make an interesting study.

Key Findings: Do we just like what we like?

Our survey was intended to provide a fun and fascinating insight into the culture around tea drinking. Whilst not a scientific study, we aimed to see if there are any trends around something as individual as choosing how we take our tea. We can assume we have proved that geographics and age can play a role, but as we expected, our choice of tea is as individual as we are – despite showing trends.

At Thrive Mental Wellbeing, we understand that every individual is different. Every one of us thinks, feels, reacts and deals with situations in our own unique way. That is why we have developed our mental health solutions and therapy services to be tailored to the needs of individuals, avoiding a 'one size fits all' approach. Our therapists work with employees to ensure that they are getting the help they need, when they need it and for as long as they need it. 

Get in touch to find out more about how our services can benefit businesses and employees today.