True dat. Itoen is the oldest and biggest and probably least likely to
let you in on any secrets because they're doing their best to break
into the US market. Have you seen their site? Unfortunately they seem
to sell some of the major teas that they have here in Japan, but they
seem to offer quite a lot of US oriented packaging. Fairly fluffy. But
I guess that is to be expected when your market is primarily composed
of manga-geeks, samurai nerds, and health-food hippies. They have a
haiku contest. Sad. I would rather see Coca Cola have a haiku contest
and Itoen offer their super popular O-i ocha.

I think the packaging is more or less the same, squarish PET bottles,
and similar labels. I was in Japan in March and noticed the tea
vending machines *everywhere*. The biggest difference is that there
are sugarcane (?) and other non-tea drinks in very similar bottles in
Japan, while they only market the teas here.

I'm none of the market segments you mentioned (but I agree, they
probably are the primary, "early adopter" markets), but I really love
their teas. You don't have to be a tea snob to taste the difference
between what they offer and the poor substitutes most of the others
offer. Yes, Tejava is great (only $.99 at my TJ's!), but it's only
black tea.

I actually keep two pitchers of tea in my refrigerator, that I make
for myself and my partner: usually one's lychee black tea, sweetened
with stevia, or tungting oolong (unsweetened), or sencha
(unsweetened). We recognize which is which by color in the fridge now.