Japanese tea and modern herbal blends: two ways to rethink the ritual
There is a detail that captures an interesting shift for Japanese tea outside Japan: at Iberkanpai, a sake and Japanese gastronomy fair in Madrid, someone served hojicha in a wine glass and suggested a cold preparation with gyokuro and sakura in sparkling water. Not as a stylistic stunt, but as a practical point of discussion for chefs, bartenders and hospitality operators.
The second edition of Iberkanpai took place in late May 2026. Within the event, the Global Japanese Tea Association, active in Spain and focused on promoting Japanese tea, hosted a workshop on the drink’s possibilities in hospitality. The emphasis was less on selling a product and more on a concrete question: how can Japanese tea become a creative tool in service, behind the bar or in the kitchen?
The setting matters. In a fair centred largely on sake and Japanese food culture, tea reaches an audience already attuned to technique, pairing and service codes. That is where one of its most appealing qualities for beverage professionals becomes visible: its ability to work in cold preparations, hybrid blends or less conventional service formats without losing its identity. In that sense, Japanese tea is being framed as an expressive ingredient rather than simply an alcohol-free alternative.
A new language for everyday pauses
On a different level, but not entirely unrelated, comes teapigs, the British brand known for presenting tea through a very contemporary visual and communicative language. The company has announced four new herbal blends: Ginger and Manuka Honey, Strawberry and Juniper, Chamomile Lullaby and Pumpkin Spice Chai. It is the brand’s first new product launch in more than five years.
Here the key point is not the ingredient list itself, but the way the range is presented. The new blends are positioned to suit different moments of the day and to fit into slower, more mindful daily rituals. It is a line that speaks to a more deliberate kind of at-home consumption, where a cup of tea or herbal infusion is not just a functional pause, but a small gesture chosen with intention.
The two stories do not overlap, but they read well side by side. On one side, hospitality professionals seeing Japanese tea as a raw material to handle creatively, even beyond the most predictable formats. On the other, a consumer brand trying to give herbal teas a warmer, more narrative identity, linked to personal time and everyday habits.
In both cases, tea is not being presented as a category that needs reinventing from scratch. Instead, it is a drink that can change function and context. It can move into non-alcoholic menus, find a place on a beverage list built around mixology, or become part of a more intentional home ritual. It is a subtle repositioning, but an interesting one, because it shifts the focus from the product itself to the way it is experienced.
How far these experiments can travel beyond their most attentive segments remains to be seen. For now, the clearest signal is simpler: in some hospitality settings and in some everyday consumption habits, tea is finding new ways to tell its story. Not a revolution, but a series of small shifts that make it more flexible, more contemporary and, above all, easier to imagine in contexts far from those where it has traditionally been placed.
