A Brief History Of The Evolution Of New Tea

Speaking of the rapid growth of the industry in recent years, new tea is undoubtedly one of them. According to the Research Report of burning knowledge consulting, the total scale of China's tea market will be about 113.6 billion yuan in 2020, ranking among the 100 billion yuan market. It is estimated that it will reach 340 billion yuan by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 24.5%.

In the 34 years since the first pearl milk tea was developed by Taiwan's chunshuitang in 1987, the development of China's current tea industry has roughly gone through four stages: powder age, street age, new tea age, and four generations of upgrading. The fourth generation upgrade has realized the all-round promotion from product raw materials and production technology to brand positioning and marketing mode, and also made the industry enter the palace of capital from the streets and alleys.

At the beginning of the 21st century, China's current tea drinks are based on chain fast food restaurants, and the production method is simple hot water brewing milk tea powder with various flavors, and the price ranges from 1 to 5 yuan. The main raw materials of milk tea powder include sugar, vegetable fat powder and essence. The quality is low, and it tastes sweet and greasy.

However, the powder age did not exist for a long time. With the establishment of happy lemon in 2006 and Coco's entry into the mainland market in 2007, China's current tea industry has entered the street era. In this stage, tea and fresh boiled pearl, coconut, Xiancao and other seasonings began to be added to the tea, and hand shaking became the main production method.

At the same time, milk tea has also been put into industrial production and occupies a place in the field of beverage. In 2005, Xiangpiao launched powdered instant cup milk tea, and then Youlemei and uni president successively launched liquid bottled or boxed milk tea. The unified bottled Assam milk tea is also one of the representative products.

With the continuous improvement of consumers' requirements for healthy diet, China's current tea has officially entered the new tea drinking stage in 2010. The new tea drinks represented by Huangcha (the predecessor of Xicha) and Xiaodian began to speed up the industrial layout. While upgrading products, efforts were made to cultivate consumers' consumption habits and preferences.

At this stage, the new type of tea is more active in marketing methods, and creating popular online products and consumption trends has become the main means of operation, while the main marketing position has shifted from offline to online. There are many soft advertisements such as hidden menus and online red drinks on social platforms such as microblog and xiaohongshu.

While offline, the main marketing method is discount promotion. According to a franchisee, when a little bit of a new franchise store opens, it will provide the store with raw materials at a discount price, and provide subsidies for the large discounts of the takeaway platform and the comment platform, so as to quickly occupy the market through the "price war". There are also various infringement cases of Shanzhai in the industry, including genuine and fake Lujiao lane, tea loving vs tea loving brother, tea color pleasing color vs tea color viewing

In 2016, Huangcha was renamed Xi Cha because of its trademark registration. Naixue tea and LeLe tea were established in 2015 and 2016, respectively. The business form of high-end new tea drinks began to take shape, and led the industry to enter a stage of rapid development, which was favored by capital. Therefore, the industry also has the view that 2015 is the first year of new tea development.

After five years of development, new tea has become a part of consumers' living habits. According to "2020 new tea white paper", 80% of the respondents' consumption motivation for new tea is personal entertainment. This also indicates an important trend, that is, products alone will not be able to support the rapid development of brands.

With the rapid increase in the number of new tea enterprises, the market competition is more intense. In 2020, it will become an important turning point of the new tea industry. The epidemic situation will accelerate the industry reshuffle, and a large number of long tail businesses will close down, and the head brand advantage will become more prominent. As pan pan, the investor of Naixue and partner of Tiantu capital management, said: "the market is growing rapidly, the opportunities for new brands are becoming less and smaller, and the head brand is still advancing."