It’s that quintessential British custom that we have been enjoying for hundreds of years.

The respond to every crisis, a bonding ritual when you welcome someone into your home and the first drink many people wake up to.

“Fancy a cuppa?” or even simply “Tea?” is music to your ears, correct?

Well, maybe not for everyone.

“I suppose there’s benevolent of an association with tea as an ancient person’s drink,” says Gillie Owen, aged 20.

The learner from London says he and his friends prefer water or diet soda drinks.

Layba, meanwhile, doesn’t drink tea at all.

“I have never liked tea,” the 20-year-ancient says. “I just ponder it tastes really off, like, really weird.”

It’s a stark contrast to her parents who, she says, “really adore” tea.

So is it a generational thing? As a country, are we falling out of adore with tea?

Last week, one of Britain’s oldest tea firms, Typhoo Tea, collapsed after a drop in sales.

The 120-year-ancient corporation has been rescued by vape maker Supreme, whose boss says he wants to develop recent products under the brand.

Sandy Chadha told the BBC the tea economy was in decline but said Supreme would look to appeal to the younger production who preferred “things like iced tea and healthier drinks”.

Tea sales volumes have fallen by 4.3% compared with two years ago, according to analysts at NielsenIQ.

And a recent survey by Mintel suggested less than half the country, 48%, now drink tea at least once a day.

Kiti Soininen, food and drink researcher at Mintel, says traditional tea is facing “intense competition” from fruit, herbal, green and specialty black tea.

Twenty-one-year-ancient learner Dylan says he drinks tea, but not the usual builder’s tea – black with a smidge of milk – and prefers to leave caffeine free.

“I drink less tea than my parents definitely. I drink Redbush tea and other less ‘tea’ teas,” he says.

Shayma, 18, says she also prefers herbal tea, while most of her friends drink coffee. She says there are “so many drinks now” and she hasn’t even heard of Typhoo.

Ms Soininen points to the huge difference between sales of tea and coffee.

“Sales of ordinary tea stood at £377m in 2023, leaving it far behind instant coffee, at [almost] £1bn,” she says.

Even instant coffee’s popularity is being challenged by the quick-growing ready-to-drink coffee economy, she adds, which has seen sales more than double over the last five years.

Polina Jones from NielsenIQ says while people “are not falling out of adore with tea per se”, the landscape is changing with huge offerings from bubble tea, herbal teas, kombuchas and vigor drinks attracting the younger production.

If this pattern continues, she believes brands should reinvent themselves and figure out how to get into the ready-to-drink space. Twinings, for example, has started to propose canned sparkling tea, while bottled kombuchas appeal to students and youthful professionals buying a meal deal, she says.

Supreme’s purchase of Typhoo includes two herbal tea brands, Heath & Heather and the London Fruit & Herb corporation, as well as specialty tea brand Ridgeways. Analyst Susannah Streeter from Hargreaves Lansdown believes Supreme will incorporate these into wellness brands it already owns.

Another test for black tea is that even for those for whom it is a staple, costs are rising and so they are buying in smaller volumes.

In 1974, the average household purchased 68g – about 30 tea bags – of tea per person, per week. By 2023, that had gone down to 19g – about 10 tea bags – per person, according to government figures.

“What’s particularly telling of the potential long-term threat for black tea is that while all age groups have similarly high usage of tea in the early morning and with breakfast, younger groups are much less likely than older ones to reach for the drink later in the day,” says Mintel’s Kiti Soininen.

She concludes with a stark warning for traditional tea makers – if younger generations continue with these habits as they get older, this will ultimately “chip away” at the size of the economy.

And as one BBC reader commented on the Typhoo collapse narrative: “You recognize things are impoverished when a tea corporation in the UK goes bust.”