さいきん、アメリカで、いとうえん(Itoen) のおちゃを見ることが多くなりました。 Itoen's "Teas' Tea" brand seems to be getting popular in the US (http://www.itoen.com/). 伊藤園 (Ito En) is founded in 1966 in Japan and it has been a pioneer in Tea beverage industry. In 1981, Ito En succeeded to produce canned Oolong Tea for the first time in the world, and then made canned green tea in 1985 for the first time. I remember, in those days, people did not believe selling canned tea would be a successful business, because teas were not something to buy: teas were supposed to be free.

Things have changed since then. People have become more health conscious and wealthier. In 2004, Japanese purchased canned/bottled tea about 6,000,000,000 litter (1,542,416,452 Gallons), paying about 4,500 million dollars (estimate). Now, Ito En is expanding its market share in the US.

Ito En's leading brand in Japan is "おーい、お茶 (ooi, ocha)" (http://www.itoen.co.jp/oiocha/). It is very well-known not only as the first brand of canned green tea, but it is known for its Haiku contest. Anyone can submit her/his Haiku to Ito En for the contest, and Ito En selects best ones and prints them on the can of "Ooi, Ocha". Why don’t you submit your own one? (I took the photo from ItoEn's website: Copyright belongs to ItoEn.)