Recently, a lemon tea brand has been highly active:
Complete tens of millions of financing, with "glutinous rice fragrant" lemon tea to break out of the circle, popular in Macao, Changsha and other places.
The signature product burst with sticky rice aroma and sold more than 100,000 cups in 5 stores in the first month of launch.
How does the brand differentiate? Where are the future development opportunities of the lemon tea category?
The turnover of 3 hours exceeded 10,000
Another lemon tea brand was financed
Recently, a lemon tea brand caught my attention and is very active in the tea drinking circle.
It is called "Ah Pop Lemon Tea", and it has just announced the completion of tens of millions of financing on August 8.
Ah pop lemon tea mainly sticky rice fragrant lemon tea, in Macao special out of the circle, become a "Macao tourism must punch card"; In Changsha, the limited product "Qinyuan Spring" was launched, and it was also continuously planted with punches.
First of all, let's take a look at the product: the signature "bursting lemon sticky rice aroma", the fragrance of glutinous rice with the high aroma of perfume lemon, rich taste, very memorable points.
Visually there are also characteristics, a glance at the entire street, fresh fruit green door head attracts attention, IP image is an explosive head, by netizens jokingly called "explosive head lemon tea", "early greedy black, burst a cup of wine" slogan is also deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
The main lemon tea, the "status" of lemon is very prominent. Walking into the store, a smell of perfume lemon came to the nose, several little brothers were pounding lemons at the same time, and the perfume lemons placed in the cupboard were freshly visible.
On the menu, the products are divided into lemon tea series, lemon specialty, milk tea series, the unit price of customers is between 14 and 19 yuan, and the average price is 16 yuan.
Lemon tea has different tea bases, including glutinous rice, autumn gold, qingyan spring, duck, small green orange and so on. There are also coffee series, mostly based on lemons, and the unit price is about 16 yuan. In addition, the menu of each area is different, for example, in Changsha, there is a "Changsha Limited" column.
Left: Bursting lemon duck; Right: Bursting Lemon Green Rock Spring
Li Jiarong, the founder of Ah Pop Lemon Tea, told me that Ah Pop Lemon Tea first started from a local stall store in 2016, opened its first store in Shunde in June 2017, and has now opened more than 80 stores, mainly street shops, with a maximum daily turnover of 32,000 yuan.
Among them, Foshan Ronggui store, 3 hours turnover exceeded 10,000 yuan; Ah pop lemon tea in the little red book punch card notes, also reached 30,000 +.
After last year's outburst, this year, the lemon tea track is extremely competitive. Almost all chain brands have launched their own lemon tea products, and brands focusing on lemon tea tracks are also running on scale.
Ah pop lemon tea how to play differentiation, what are worth learning from the practice?
Innovative "sticky rice aroma" tea base
Five stores sell 100,000 cups a month
1. In the field of lemon tea, play a differentiated flavor type
Ah Pop Lemon Tea was first launched in October 2019, with sales of more than 100,000 cups in the first month (there were 5 stores at that time, with an average of 600 cups+ per store per day).
Then it continued to explode, and in Shunde, Ronggui single store sold 20,000 cups /month, and Daliang store sold 500,000 cups a year.
Burst lemon sticky rice aroma
In the lemon tea category, "changing the bottom" is a common innovative method. From the public's black tea, jasmine green tea, to the niche caryophyllus green, water golden turtle, tooth tip yellow, night incense, etc., a variety of tea bases have been developed very richly. In particular, the smell of duck has swept almost the entire industry.
It can be said that lemon tea wants to be brilliant, and it is necessary to find a tea base with a sufficiently unique aroma.
The pop lemon tea uses "green tea base + fragrant leaves", which innovates the glutinous rice fragrant tea base, which brings distinct memory points and recognition to the product.
2, the fruit is "unconventional", and more niche fruits are used out of the circle
In addition to lemons, ah pop lemon tea rarely uses regular fruits, mostly according to different seasons, with different niche fruits out of the circle.
For example, the pop lemon powder bale, made of perfume lemon and fresh bale juice, is fragrant, sour and sweet, and the color is also powdered.
Burst lemon powder bale
There is also a bursting blackcurrant, a dreamy purple with high appearance, full of coconut fruit ice powder, which is rich and refreshing.
In addition, there are also the application of niche fruits such as bayberry, lychee, and yellow peel, and the new mango and durian are about to be launched, which are also fruits rarely used in lemon tea.
In the field of lemon tea with highly homogeneous products, it is a road worth exploring to match new flavors with niche and rare fruits.
3. Every time you go to a city, you use local characteristics to go out of the circle
In Changsha, Ah Pop Lemon Tea launched "Qinyuan Spring", a light jasmine tea fragrance, with a handy large lemon juice, "a mouthful of refreshing to the top", in Changsha single store up to 500 cups + per day.
In Macau, Ah Pop Lemon Tea has become another signature product based on the locals' preference for black tea.
Bursting lemon autumn golden incense
"We are preparing to enter the Nanjing market next month, and we will also launch a limited lemon tea according to some local characteristics in Nanjing."
Regional limitation, which is an exclusive preference for a region, is an effective way for brands to break through the area and increase stickiness.
4, 800 acres of self-built lemon orchards, the supply chain end to do support
Since the lemon tea burst out of the circle, the price of perfume lemon has been rising, and the price of perfume lemon once soared to 30 yuan / catty in March this year.
The brand of the main lemon tea, the supply and price of lemon directly affect the profit and future development.
Since 2019, Ah Pop Lemon Tea has built 200 acres of lemon orchards, and has been continuously expanded, reaching 800 acres by 2022.
Ah pop lemon tea self-built orchard
"We are constantly optimizing all aspects of perfume lemons from planting to storage, and strive to create a complete perfume supply chain, which is also the guarantee that we are ready to exceed 300 stores this year." Lee Ka Wing said.
5. Launch "Four Seasons Tea" to dilute the seasonality of lemon tea
In the past, lemon tea had a pronounced seasonal and low season, but now, many brands are trying to weaken this attribute.
Ah pop lemon tea adopts the strategy of "main lemon tea in spring and summer, and new sugar water in autumn and winter".
In addition, in addition to sugar water, there are milk tea, 1 liter oversized series and coffee series, of which the pop lemon ice drop coffee is very popular, "almost every single must order", the coffee taste is mellow, and users seem to have discovered a new continent.
Ah pop lemon tea every month on the new 3 to 4 products, the menu is updated once a month, and each month has a different theme, will be based on last month's sales leaderboard for menu adjustments. Multi-category coverage and menu updates have met the diverse needs of customers entering the store.
Summer launch of "Breaking News Melon"
6. Mix ice, sugar, and add small ingredients to meet the needs of customers in all aspects
"Life has no limit, adjust sugar and adjust ice", about the choice of ice degree, ah pop lemon tea is divided into less ice, three points, five points, seven points four choices, sugar degree also has less sugar, three points, five points, seven points and sugar-free a variety of choices.
Many lemon teas are not added with small ingredients, but ah pop lemon tea has ice powder, coconut fruit, crisp and other small ingredients can be added.
"The consistent image of lemon tea is just lemon with tea base, we add niche fruits and small ingredients to meet the diverse needs of customers." Lee Ka Wing said.
What is the future of lemon tea?
Hand-played lemon tea began to become popular in 2021, from a category without brands to the rise of major chain brands, after more than two years of market verification.
Now, lemon tea on the market has three main creative directions:
First, the tea base iteration, combined with the floral fragrance, the overall aroma is getting higher and higher
Ah pop lemon tea is used in "glutinous rice", Uncle Qiu used a variety of tea bases to match, tart lime launched the ancient rhyme of flowers, evening fragrance 2 kinds of fragrant lemon tea.
In addition, many lemon tea brands and osmanthus flowers, roses, lemons and other flower tea elements to do collocation, for example, Lin Xiang Lemon will match osmanthus with lemon tea, 1 lemon 1 will hang chrysanthemum, black goji berries and lemon tea, Wang Lemon's camellia lemon tea, lemon season uses rose and lemon tea collocation.
Second, there is still room for development of vegetables and melons and niche fruits
The first is the combination of vegetables. In Guangzhou, Tea Rescue Planet locates vegetable and fruit tea, bitter melon lemon tea sells 4.1 million cups a year; LINLEE and Lemon Season use a combination of cucumber and lemon tea; Wang Lemon uses a combination of coriander and lemon tea. This year's little famous Linglong melon may also be applied.
Secondly, multiple lemon tea brands will choose a variety of niche fruits.
For example, tarts choose green ti, oil mandarin, green apple, bergamot, and bale to match; Roasted lemon and lemon seasons pair plums with lemon tea; COT· X Chaoshan Gongfu Tea pairs orange, plum and lemon tea.
Third, from green to black, another way, the color out of the circle
And from thai green to black lemon tea, lemon tea uses color out of the circle has never stopped. Wang Lemon's "Black Lemon Duck Fragrance", mixed with cuttlefish juice to make it black; Shuyi's fairy grass black lemon tea, added with black fairy grass dew, is known as "lemon tea black gold technology".
In addition, the "blue truncated inner volume" launched by the ZUO Lemon Tea Research Institute, hand-beaten lemon tea added to the phycocyanin, became a cup of "Klein Blue Lemon Tea", using black goji berries to present purple lemon tea, which was recently very popular on the Little Red Book.
In addition, in April this year, apricot hand lemon tea launched "a whole ginseng lemon tea", which became popular as soon as it was launched.
It can be seen that this year's lemon tea market has really come to test creativity.