UK braces for possible tea shortage

Even though coffee has become increasingly popular in the UK, the nation still drinks much more tea than coffee, but tea lovers need to prepare themselves for a potential shortage. Recent Houthi attacks on ships has caused merchants to reroute their vessels around the African cape, adding a delay of up to two weeks per ship. One of the items caught up in this shipping is tea, and it is the first food item to be affected by this disruption in the flow of goods.

The good news is that this is expected to be a temporary phenomenon as companies realign their shipping schedules. There are no issues with the growing of tea leaves, so supplies are not diminished, only their transport to processing facilities. However, this highlights how vulnerable many countries are when it comes to their food supplies. People have become accustomed to seeing a dazzling variety of imported goods in supermarkets. How amazed would someone from the 1800s be if they could see a modern grocery store that contained scores of fruits, vegetables, and other foods from all around the world within easy reach (and priced somewhat affordably to boot).

For a large swath of people, the shipping disruptions that occurred during the height of the pandemic ushered in the first experience of widespread shortages in the grocery store. With no end in sight to the hostilities in the Persian Gulf, we should expect additional supply delays like this. Whether these short-term issues become long term problems is a question to which no one seems to have an answer. Between this type of political disruption and the effects of climate change (recent examples include olive oil crop failures in Europe and fruits and vegetables being washed away in floodwaters in Australia), it may be that the glory days of unending abundance are behind us.