Some time ago, I wrote an article about some difficulties encountered in the development of Laoshan tea. It is the little thing said in the program "Ask politics Qingdao" - the problem of Laoshan tea's national ranking falling again and again.
I have a total of more than 40,000 hits on the whole network, hundreds of comments, I have read one by one, I said in the article: Laoshan tea The entire industry to survive, must expand the scale and output, otherwise it can only continue to shrink and be eliminated by the market.
But some netizens said that there is no need, Laoshan tea should learn from West Lake Longjing, Biluochun, make small and beautiful tea, high-end and then high-end, so as to reflect the value of Laoshan tea.
I don't agree with this statement, if Laoshan tea takes the road of "small and beautiful", there is only one dead end.
"Small and beautiful", which contains two meanings, one is "small", that is, less production; the other is "beautiful", that is, high quality.
In fact, there is another implication, that is, the price is high. Because high quality means high cost, but low yield, in order to survive and profit can only desperately raise prices. Low price, can not meet the problem of low output and high quality at the same time, to achieve the opposite of "small profits and high sales" - thick profits and low sales.
Not only tea, but all "small and beautiful" products have these three characteristics of "one less and two high": small quantity, high quality, and high price. For example, the Ferrari sports car in Italy and the luxury refrigerator in Liebherr in Germany.
Specific to tea, there are two typical examples, one is the West Lake Longjing, and the other is Biluochun. These two kinds of tea are famous for their rarity, the price and profit are also high enough, according to the "2021 China Regional Tea Brand Value Research Report" statistics, Biluochun unit sales brand revenue, surprisingly reached a jaw-dropping 2275.67 yuan / kg, ranking first in the country, West Lake Longjing is 924.53 yuan / kg, ranking third.
Selling a pound of tea can earn so much, people envy to death, in contrast, Laoshan tea unit sales brand income is only 79.9.yuan, less than a fraction of others, but the country can still rank in the top 20.
Why can the West Lake Longjing do it, but other teas in the country can't do it?
Quite simply, the demand. There is a prerequisite for this small and beautiful, that is, the demand for this tea must be large enough, and the demand must be stable, and the demand will not be reduced because of the invasion of competitors, so as to maintain a high price.
You have to take the West Lake Longjing, Biluochun, genuine Da Hong Pao, etc., when Laoshan tea is small and beautiful learning case, this makes two mistakes, one is the survivor bias, and the other is the cause of the inverted effect.
Let's start with the effect as the cause. People's success is not because of small output, but because people's names are too big, the aura blessing of the emperors of the past generations, coupled with the propaganda of countless literati and inkers over the past hundred years, has already achieved the degree that no one in the country knows, until now there are still film and television literary works holding feet to lift the palanquin, resulting in the rich people in the country are crazy robbing, are going to the tea farmers' homes in the legitimate production areas in advance to book directly, licensed goods are not in circulation in the market at all, on this matter, the relationship is still to be fought, the tea leaves are taken directly, can this price come down? So people can live very moist and earn more.
It is because people are famous and big brands that they can play like this, not because of the small production to have fame. Those world's top 500 famous companies, such as GE (General Electric), IBM, AT&T, not because of the use of abbreviations to succeed, but because people first succeeded, famous enough, dare to use abbreviations, the beginning of the time are honest to write General Electric Company (GE), International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T), you have to learn from others when you are a new company, the name can not be remembered, and you will be scolded by others for being neurotic.
In other words, to be small and beautiful, the brand of your tea must be loud enough, so that consumers want to turn over in the bed and can't sleep, it's hard to grab it, take it out to show it to friends, when they drink, friends are excited to get excited, that's ok.
This allows you to live comfortably while maintaining a small yield.
Those teas that do not have this fame and want to play like this are almost dead, such as some historical teas in various provinces, either disappearing, or surviving now, leaving Biluochun and a few other successes, that is, the survivor bias.
However, please think about a question, are these "small and beautiful" famous teas really small?
No, almost all the famous teas that can stand up now are in this mode: core production area + peripheral production area.
The output of the core production area is low, the price is also high, but the amount of the peripheral production area is very large, but also cheap, can meet the needs of most of the tea friends in the country, because only by letting as many people as possible drink this brand of tea, can we increase or maintain the original demand, if others do not even know what the taste of this tea, then a long time will hang his appetite, other famous teas will be thrown away, saying "The guest officer comes, we have this, come and play", people will get on other people's incense boats.
Let me give you an example, Pu'er tea.
Pu'er tea existed 20 years ago as a "side-selling tea", a lot of quantities, but not famous, the price is cheap, but why is it hot now? Selling hundreds of thousands of pieces at every turn?
The first is that people have opened up the situation through a series of hype means, such as the Ma Gang sending tribute tea into Beijing, which has made everyone in the country known. But the output of Pu'er tea has always been very large, the whole of Yunnan can be produced, ordinary Pu'er can spend a few dollars to drink, this is the product of the peripheral production area, most tea friends drink ordinary Pu'er. But how to play small and beautiful? Simple, delineate the production area, such as Iceland, Ban Zhang and other several hills of tea, is good is expensive, and then find a few ancient tree kings, this price will not come up? Of course, because Pu'er has the characteristics of getting older and better, it has collection value, and it can also be small and beautiful by means of year-making, production batches and so on.
But the existence of small and beautiful is based on more than 100,000 tons of ordinary Pu'er in Yunnan.
Pu'er's over-hype we can not learn, but want to survive in such a fiercely competitive market, is this idea, all the famous tea that can stand, is to use the amount of peripheral production areas to expand market demand as much as possible, and then by restricting the core production areas to raise prices.
Everyone think about it carefully, the West Lake Longjing, Jin Junmei, DaHong Pao, Zhengshan Small Seed, Bullpen Pit Cinnamon you bought online offline are the core production areas, basically there is no such possibility, they are all peripheral production areas, but the quality taste is similar, the closer the quality is to the core production area, the more expensive, until you are seduced to the extent of "I am open this time, I have to spend blood to buy some genuine products to try", you want to even drink tea in the peripheral production areas, will you still be interested in this tea?
This is the model of core production area + peripheral production area, first use the peripheral production area to make the plate larger, and then focus on creating high-end tea in the core area.
For those teas that are famous, the core production area is bound to appear. Because once the brand is reached to this height, it is no longer a simple drink, but has become a symbol, a value symbol that reflects the status of identity, so it must be less, and the price should be high, which is the same as Moutai.
Again, the peripheral production areas open up demand and sales channels, and the core production areas increase the tone to earn high prices.
However, the time of formation of tea in different periods, core production areas and peripheral production areas is different, and historical teas are first core production areas, and then extended to peripheral production areas, such as hangzhou surrounding production areas in West Lake Longjing, Zhengshan and Waishan of Zhengshan small species. But the newly rising famous tea, often first have the peripheral production areas, after the reputation to go, and then look for the core production areas, such as Pu'er, anyway, to make their own plate.
If the plate is not large, the demand will only gradually shrink, and survival will become more and more difficult. Let me give you a counterexample, the Junshan Silver Needle, one of the top ten famous teas in China.
The fame of Junshan Silver Needle, don't need me to say it? It is found in the 1915 Panamanian version of China's Top Ten Famous Teas and the 1959 version of The Nation's Top Ten Famous Teas. In the Qing Dynasty, as a tribute tea, "18 catties per year". In 1955 the Leipzig International Exposition received a gold medal, and in 1972 it was used as the designated tea for receiving foreign heads of state, and it was the existence of the national ceremonial tea.
Junshan Silver Needle
It can be said that Junshan Silver Needle is the bull's ear holder of the national yellow tea category. Mentioned here, Junshan silver needle is one tea two categories, that is to say, different historical periods in the green tea and yellow tea two categories back and forth, including now is the same, but famous because of yellow tea.
But before 2005, compared to the other ten famous teas, the development of Junshan silver needle is very bad, the influence is limited to its place of origin Yueyang and surrounding areas, other places can not even see the shadow, not to mention the real tea, even yueyang other areas of the "Junshan silver needle" is rarely seen, the most important operator of its brand - Yueyang Tea Company has been bad business, owes a bunch of debts, even the money to update the tea tree is gone, let alone to junshan silver needle brand, resulting in a further decline in the quality of Junshan silver needles, Gradually forgotten by customers. This is normal, can not drink, know less and less people, the overall demand is definitely going to fall. Coupled with the increasing chaos in the market, even a tea standard has not been unified, and the impersonation of tea in other places is shoddy, and many people have been deceived, and have since begun to alienate this tea.
Why is that?
Because the origin of Junshan silver needle is too small, Junshan silver needle is produced from Junshan Island in Yueyang Dongting Lake, how big is this island? 0.96 square kilometers, the tea garden area at its peak was only 470 acres, generally maintained at about 300 acres, and the tea production was about 3,000 kilograms floating.
That is to say, the core production area is small, and the needs of ordinary people cannot be met.
Junshan silver needle fame is large, but because yellow tea is a niche category, originally not popular, the national demand is less, the popularity and West Lake Longjing, Biluochun, Huangshan Maofeng and other head brands, the difference is still relatively large, the brand in the country is not loud, can only gradually shrink, from the national historical tea to the regional famous tea, what '' "declining top ten famous tea", "forgotten nobles" such words come out.
At that time, Anhua black tea has not yet risen, Junshan silver needle as the first brand of many tea in Hunan, actually developed into this look, Hunan Province finally really can't see it, so Hunan Tea Co., Ltd. spent 8 million yuan in 2004 to buy the trademark "Junshan", established Hunan Junshan Silver Needle Tea Company, and bought the right to operate Junshan Island Tea Garden in the second year, and began to directly operate Junshan Silver Needle. In 2005, the provincial government listed the Junshan Silver Needle brand development project in the "Top Ten Landmark Projects of Agriculture in the Province", and it is a key project, that is, to make great efforts to save the historical tea of Junshan Silver Needle.
Because it involves the transformation of the historical famous tea brand into a corporate brand of "Junshan Silver Needle", that is, the transformation of a public brand into a private brand, the controversy was extremely great at that time, the process was not as simple as the two sentences I wrote, but the forces of all sides were fighting, and the final result naturally made many local tea merchants jump up and down.
In any case, Junshan Silver Needle has the support of Hunan Tea Co., Ltd., a tea giant, which has begun to come back to life, the first thing to do is to expand the area of tea gardens, expand the tea gardens to the surrounding areas similar to the climate environment of Junshan Island, from the core production area to the peripheral production areas, and desperately improve the yield of mu. Then we built sales channels, opened stores in other cities across the country, and even set up sales outlets in 11 foreign countries, and began to export. Then began to show its value at the expo and agricultural expo, and the transaction amount was more than 20,000 kilograms. 2006 is the "Year of China's Russia", after operation, Junshan Silver Needle, West Lake Longjing, Sichuan Zhuyeqing was given to Russian President Pujin as a national gift tea by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Commerce. Junshan Silver Needle also actively participated in various tea evaluation competitions, and won many national awards.
However, in the case of the collective decline of the national yellow tea category, the development of Junshan Silver Needle should only continue to live today, rather than striding forward, no way, which is determined by the decline in overall market demand.
Shopping malls are like battlefields, and if you don't advance against the current, you will retreat. Even such a famous tea has to make a large plate, desperately engaged in big demand, Laoshan tea is a situation, just such a little production, not to mention that few people in Shandong know, even people in many cities in Shandong do not know. A total of so many people drink, and in the face of competition from other teas such as Pu'er, white tea, black tea and Rizhao green tea, the demand is declining year after year, and to play small and beautiful must be dead. The final result is that Laoshan tea is eliminated by the market and becomes a "trick of the farmers" who grow their own drinks.
If the demand for Laoshan tea declines further, what will be the result?
First of all, from the perspective of tea farmers, this will make the income of tea farmers in Laoshan continue to decline, thereby reducing the enthusiasm for growing tea, and more importantly, it will reduce the quality of Laoshan tea.
Most of the tea farmers in Laoshan are selling fresh leaves to tea factories and tea merchants, how is the price of fresh leaves determined, the pricing mechanism is based on the daily demand, that is to say, to see the price game between tea merchants and tea merchants. There are many tea merchants who collect tea today, they bid each other for prices, tea farmers will sell tea leaves to tea merchants or tea factories with high bids, and if you bid low, tea farmers will sell to others.
Today, the earliest Laoshan tea in early April, the golden buds in the mountain production area, a pound of fresh leaves actually sold for 400 yuan, which is the result of this price game. This winter is particularly cold, minus ten degrees, frozen to death a lot of tea trees, tea production is lower than in previous years, more people to rob, this price is called up.
This is the most basic supply and demand relationship.
So if the demand for Laoshan tea in the market becomes smaller, and there are fewer and fewer tea merchants and tea factories to collect tea, then they will desperately suppress the purchase price of fresh leaves, and the income of tea farmers will also decline, which will lead to another problem, they will try to reduce the cost of planting tea, then the quality of Laoshan tea will decline, the quality decline will lead to consumer dissatisfaction, the market demand will be further reduced, and a vicious circle has been born.
Then the second is from the perspective of tea merchants, the market size of Laoshan tea is shrinking, which will lead to 3 results: 1, selling less and less real tea; 2, shoddy charging; 3, the price is getting higher and higher.
The demand is less, the number of people who buy Laoshan tea is also less, what if you can't sell this number in a year? You can only have 3 ways, 1 sell fake Laoshan tea, because the cost of fake is low, the profit is high, it is not difficult to earn an average of 100 per pound of tea, but it is difficult for you to sell real Laoshan tea, and it can also lower the price and increase sales. 2, selling is really OK, but to shoddy, the later tea as a few hundred yuan less than a thousand early spring tea to sell, earn more. 3, the first two roads you do not go, is to sell really good Laoshan tea, you can not sell so much tea, that can only raise the price to high profits, but this is the most difficult, because the market for the price is the most sensitive, the average market price is most people sell cheap, I sell high, I am dead. Therefore, generally only the first two roads can be taken, cheating or shoddy.
This is why the fake Laoshan tea on the market is so widespread, at the beginning some people wanted to make money, moved their brains, used the southern tea to beat the price down, and then others had to follow up in order to survive, which is called bad money to expel good money.
In fact, the past is not like this, when did this situation begin, it is from 2005 when the southern tea entered the Qingdao market in large quantities, pretending to be Laoshan tea, southern tea because of the low price, the quality is OK, robbed most of the real Laoshan tea market demand, led to today's situation.
In the comments of my article, many people say that Laoshan tea sells at a high price, but the taste is poor and disappointed, in fact, quite a lot of people are deceived and slaughtered.
The reduction in demand is the most fatal, even the brand factory can not hold back, "Ask politics Qingdao" program said that all the foreign stores of our leading enterprises of Laoshan tea have been withdrawn, which is an example. Even the survival of tea farmers has become a problem, how high-end?
Therefore, in the future, Laoshan tea must do two things, one is to expand production, so that it can have the financial resources to play the brand and desperately improve market demand. The other is to improve the quality of tea, so that Laoshan tea and tea in other places have obvious differences in quality, reducing the cost of tea recognition. In this way, Laoshan tea can rise again, and the life of tea farmers can be better.
If you have anything you want to say, you can leave a message in the comment area.