Tea in Spain smiles again: In a coffee drinking country, one man is doing his best to convert at least some Spaniards to tea drinking.(Per Sundmalm, Tea Shop of East West Company)(Company Profile)

Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, March, 2002 by Sueiras, Manual

In the mid-1980s Per Sundmalm, a Swedish University student, came to Barcelona to learn Spanish. He had amongst his group of friends a number of other Northern European students, mainly from Great Britain and Scandinavia, and they all complained about the same thing -- how hard it was to find and drink good tea in Spain.

As opposed to most European countries, tea is still a rarity in Spain, a stronghold of coffee and cocoa. In 1997, coffee represented 72% of all hot drinks consumed in Spain, whereas tea was a bare 1.2%. In other words, out of the 206,262 tons of hot drinks Spaniards ...