Is Tata Tea moving from being a tea company to a beverages giant?
Tata Tea is not only in tea, but in its many forms. It is in instant tea, flavoured tea, green tea. And it is in coffee. We always wanted to be a strong player in the beverage space. More importantly, we wanted to be at the cutting edge of the beverage market. And one common thread was the health consciousness of people. Are we going to remain only in tea? The answer is no. I think we must define ourselves. What is our business? Our business is not just tea, our business is beverage. And it’s a healthy beverage. Why did you acquire a company in the US? The biggest market in the world is the United States. Fortunately, in spite of our acquisition of Tetley, the US was a different cup of tea altogether. We needed to make our presence grow. We found a very interesting development – the growth of enhanced water. And when we looked at that, we found its brightest star was Glaceau. The US market for beverages is difficult to crack. How will the enhanced water acquisition help you? The tea ma
