Consumer willingness to pay for organic tea in an emerging market: addressing hypothetical bias and attribute non-attendance in a discrete choice experiment from Iran

Purpose This study evaluates consumer preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for organic tea attributes – health, food safety, sensory quality, and certification – in the emerging Iranian market, while jointly addressing two methodological challenges that may distort WTP estimates in discrete choice experiments (DCEs): hypothetical bias and attribute non-attendance (ANA). Design/methodology/approach A discrete choice experiment was conducted with 384 tea consumers in Tehran across three survey treatments: baseline, Cheap Talk, and Honesty Priming. Preferences were estimated using conditional logit and Endogenous Attribute Attendance (EAA) models, with WTP confidence intervals derived via Krinsky–Robb bootstrapping. Findings Health-related attributes (residue-free safety and pesticide reduction) command the highest WTP premiums. Cheap Talk and Honesty Priming substantially reduce stated attribute non-attendance (by approximately 40 and 63%, respectively). The EAA model outperforms conditional logit in model fit, and Honesty Priming yields the most conservative WTP estimates; the total premium under the EAA–HP specification equals approximately 15.7% of the base price. Research limitations/implications The sample is restricted to an affluent urban district of Tehran, limiting generalizability to the wider Iranian population. The hypothetical nature of the experiment persists despite mitigation, and stated non-attendance measures may not fully capture actual attribute-processing strategies. Social implications The estimated WTP premiums suggest that market mechanisms can support farmers' transition to pesticide-reduced organic tea production, with potential benefits for public health and food-safety standards in Iran. Originality/value To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to jointly apply Cheap Talk, Honesty Priming, and EAA modelling within a single organic food choice experiment, providing novel evidence from the under-researched Middle Eastern market.