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Homegrown sushi chain St Pierre's is hoping green tea will become as
popular with New Zealanders as the flat white.
The company aims to open as many as 10 of its Green Tea Lounges in the next five years, following the success of the pilot at its Westfield Pakuranga outlet. The next opens in April at its Elliott St store when it comes up for refurbishment.
Director Nick Katsoulis has high hopes for the concept.
"I believe that the drink has massive potential. It's not as addictive as coffee, but once you start drinking it, it becomes more and more enjoyable."
Katsoulis fell in love with green tea on visits to Japan.
He is hoping green tea will go the way of coffee, but from his experience peddling sushi to the masses, it will take time to become widely accepted.
"It's a matter of people's taste evolution as well."
When he started his first shop in Wellington in 1984, he said there was only one store in the capital - in Lambton Quay - selling cappuccino.
Modelled on the traditional Japanese tea shop, the Green Tea Lounge is dedicated only to that form of tea. As in Japan, the tea is served hot or cold, in forms such as frappe or latte, and with accompaniments such as green tea ice-cream or traditional sweets such as mochi (glutinous rice cakes).
The first lounge opened just before Christmas 2007. Claimed to be the first specialist green tea outlet in Australasia, its patronage at first was overwhelmingly from the strong Asian student population in east Auckland but has now shifted to a largely Pakeha crowd.
Katsoulis said sales rose 25 per cent in a year, even as overall mall patronage declined with the opening of Sylvia Park.
He hopes the Green Tea Lounge concept will popularise higher-grade green teas.
Katsoulis likened the current prevalence of low-grade green tea in New Zealand to instant coffee's dominance 30 years ago.
He said St Pierre's green tea was sourced directly from Japan's major tea prefecture, Shizuoka.
Already some of the 26 St Pierre's Sushi outlets sell the tea, in loose leaf and teabags, to take home.
