While consumers enjoy diverse choices in tea drinking, there is a different story at the political economy level. Lipton has been selling loose leaf tea with the package label ‘Rize tea, Turkish tea from the Black Sea’, in addition to their popular teabags. Recently Coca Cola bought 50% of Dogadan (literally, ‘from nature’), a herbal teabag manufacturer. Reportedly, Coca Cola will invest \$40 million in this business. After the acquisition, the firm started producing loose leaf black tea and advertising it as ‘nature comes to you’. With Coca Cola’s financial muscle, there are new factories at the Black Sea region and a very intensive advertising campaign. The television advertising depicts bright green leaves flying in from recognizably Karadeniz tea plantations to a very urban high-rise skyline, then into several open kitchen-living room areas. The ince belli and çaydanlık on the stove are as prominent as the people, young and old, drinking tea while laughing, talking and having a good time. We wonder if Lipton and Coke will eventually drive out various local firms and dominate the tea market within which tea moves, along with the movement between ordinary and special times.
References
Special and Ordinary Times
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