How Much Tea Brits Actually Drink Every Year

Tea has a long and storied history in the United Kingdom and remains an extremely popular drink in British culture, but how much do Brits really drink? The English consume tea everywhere, from their kitchen tables at breakfast to afternoon high tea with tiny sandwiches and scones. There are so many varieties of tea to choose from, and each has its own unique health benefits and flavor profiles, so tea drinkers have their pick when selecting their favorite variety.

Daily tea time began in England in the 17th century, when Catherine of Braganza from Portugal married King Charles II. Catherine had a daily tea-time ritual, and the trend caught on among the upper class in England. As its popularity rose, the East India Company started importing more tea from British colonies in Asia. Tea had been drunk in Asia for centuries by the time it made its way to Britain, but it quickly became a staple.

There's a reason we associate tea so closely with Britain. They truly do drink gallons of it. According to Reader's Digest, Brits drink 100 million cups of tea every single day. That's over 36 billion cups of tea consumed every year. In comparison, only 95 million cups of coffee are drunk every day in the United Kingdom. Interestingly, before tea made its way to England from China, coffee was the caffeinated drink of choice. Tea was extremely expensive and reserved for the rich. The Brits decided to start growing tea in India, one of their colonies at the time, making it a lot more accessible and allowing the general public to get in on the trend.

To put 36 billion cups into perspective, the population of England is around 56 million, while the population of the United States is only about 332 million. The entire world's population is 7.9 billion, so the Brits drink more cups of tea every year than there are people on the planet.