Tea Shortage

[Alex]

Now we're beimg told of a possible tea shortage due to the problems in the Red Sea.   Knowing what this country is like the shelves will probably empty at any whiff of a shortage, better stock up eh ?   

[Ashy]

How strange, I bought tea yesterday.

[muddy]

Only drink coffee.

[JBR]

Tea shortage?  No problem: we grow our own!

[Raven]

We're not tea drinkers either, last time I had tea was in hospital after my fall. I asked Regan to bring me a box of Red Berry Fruit Tea, the hospitals stuff was awful so when the tea trolley came round I just got a cup of boiling water and bunged in my own berry tea bag.

[JBR]

I usually drink coffee in the morning after I get up.  Coffee beans, of course, ground up and the coffee made in a machine.

This morning, however, having felt sick with an attack of BPPV, I made a cup of tea.  I find tea better when you're not feeling 100%.

[Ashy]

I doubt if there will be a real tea shortage, after all the Suez canal has been closed before, for several years when I was young, and more recently when the Evergreen ship got stuck broadsides, but we still got tea.

[klondike]

If you shop in Lidl you can see the shortages coming. They haven't had any Gold label own brand for several weeks now. Selling branded instead.

[Ashy]

That's interesting but if it's been apparent for a while, could it even be related to the Middle East conflict and shipping in the Red Sea?

[klondike]

They do run out of the odd thing occasionally anyway. No own brand yeast extract for several weeks either. They used to do own brand chunky soups and they vanished entirely. One time they had no tinned sliced mushrooms for months. I think they have problems finding suppliers to sell stuff to them for less than cost price.

[Mups]

This will just make people panic buy and empty the shelves.  Then shoppers will think there must be a tea shortage!

Remember what happened when all the toilet rolls disapeared from the shelves a while back?

[Scrumpy]

Tea shortage.. !! 
What a load of crap.. 
They always tell us at Christmas time that there will be a turkey shortage.. there never is... But a lot of turkeys are sold..  Someone is making big money out of scaremongering..

[ansu]

At least here in Germany discounters and supermarkets are ordering less, i.e. the staff is refilling the shelves continuously and if you are shopping at the "wrong moment" the shelf will be empty. On the other side our papers write that due to the enormous increase in prices people are buying less, above all less fruits and vegetables. 

[klondike]

It's nothing new. I forget the sequence but at one time or another many years back and over several years we had sugar, potato, coffee, and I think even a salt shortage. In every case supply and demand saw the prices soar. The suppliers noticed people still bought even with outrageous increases and after the prices did ease but never once back to the original levels.

[Ashy]

That brings back the memories, there was a sugar shortage and my grandmother was quite frail and all her friends bought some extra sugar for her. As a result she had more sugar than Sainsbury's. There was a shortage of bread in the same year, I think, and the same thing happened.