Now is a bad time to launch a new tea brand due to the reduction in market size, as from ‘2012 → 2020’ there has been a 24 million kg reduction in the annual sales volume of black tea. This is likely due to rising prices of black tea and due to its price elasticity of demand of -1.2 the customer base for this is extremely reactive to changes in price. This change in price could be due to a number of factors like an increase in production costs. However if there is a reduction in market size and profitability firms may choose to exit the market therefore creating a gap in the market for a new black tea firm to make supernormal profits even if there is only an area for growth for a short period of time . On the other hand it is a good time to develop a new brand for tea, as long as the brand is focused around factors that consumers are becoming increasingly interested in like ‘62%’ of all people think it is important that tea is ethically sourced, and this is an ever growing number, this is evident as ‘Pukka’ a organic and ethically sourced black tea and health tea provider grew a staggering ‘15.4%’ in the 2019 calendar year. However this may create large barriers to entry as ‘Pukka’ have the largest market share in the ethically sourced tea market, therefore they have the largest and most known brand image and have access to economies of scale like discounts on shipping costs, trade credit ect. Thus making it extremely difficult for an unestablished low capital emerging tea firm to compete and survive. Finally it is a bad time to launch a new tea brand due to the tea market as a whole (black tea and health tea markets) are a monopoly power with a 5 firm concentration ratio of ‘74.37%’. This creates huge barriers to entry for a new tea brand like a lack of access to economies of scale, trade credit and capital. These all make it hard for a new firm to compete as economies of scale allow large firms to lower their production costs per unit and therefore supply goods to customers for lower prices, trade credit allows firms to spend money they don't have yet so therefore can invest their capital in product development and marketing to increase brand image and finally large amounts of capital and liquid cash allows firms to invest in R and D to better their products and develop new technologies to gain competitive advantages. However some consumers may feel disconnected from these big brands, so there may be an opportunity for a tea firm to open a small shop in which it can better connect with its customers to build its own unique selling point (USP) of which a large firm is not able to deliver. Overall due to the high concentration of the tea market and the huge barriers to entry, now is not the best time to develop a large scale tea brand however if a firm is looking to start a small scale niche and ethically sourced brand then there may be a market for that style of product