Zhou Jing (right), director of the Yichang Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, live-streamed Yichang tea. Photo by Liu Kang
Yichang, May 27 (Dong Xiaobin, Guo Xiaoying) "Our green tea soup is resistant to bubbles, black tea aroma is pure, black tea color is green and brown..." Recently, Zhou Jing, director of the Agricultural and Rural Bureau of Yichang City, Hubei Province, worked hard in front of the camera to "shout" and introduce Yichang tea to the world.
In the past two months, many governments and tea companies in Hubei have explored new models of Internet marketing, using the "online + offline" simultaneous sales method to achieve the "turn" of tea from backlog and slow sales to best-selling sales.
Hubei has a long history of tea production, "green, red, black, white, yellow, green" six major tea categories are complete, there are Edong Dabie Mountain Tea Area, West Hubei Wuling Mountain and Yichang Three Gorges Tea Area, Northwest Hubei Qinba Mountain Tea Area, Southern Hubei Mufu Mountain Tea Area, Ezhong Dahong Mountain Tea Area and other advantageous tea areas. As early as the 17th century, with the opening of the Wanli Tea Ceremony, Hubei and Hubei tea had a pivotal position in the global tea trade.
Hubei tea gradually came out of the predicament with the help of the Internet. (Data map) Photo by Wang Kangrong
Liu Jincheng, deputy secretary-general of the Wanli Tea Ceremony (China) Cooperative, introduced that at that time, the tea merchants processed and packed the purchased tea in Hankou, transported it north through Henan, Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, completed the transaction at the Sino-Russian border port, and then crossed Siberia, arrived in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and then sold to European countries.
After entering the 21st century, the "heat" of Chinese tea has rebounded again. In 2019, the area of tea gardens, the total output of tea, and the value of tea exports in Hubei Province ranked fourth in the country, and the comprehensive output value of tea exceeded 60 billion yuan.
However, due to the impact of the epidemic this year, tea circulation across the country has been blocked, the resumption of work has been delayed, and consumption has been poor, and tea production and sales in most areas have been affected. Hubei, as the "epicenter" of the epidemic, has a particularly serious impact.
On March 18, the "Cheer Hubei Tea" public welfare assistance live broadcast activity initiated by the Tea Channel of Hunan Radio and Television Station was held, which led to the online participation of more than 5 million people across the country, affecting sales of nearly 1 million yuan and kicking off the prelude to the "recovery" of Hubei tea.
Subsequently, the Tea Industry Committee of the China Association for the Promotion of International Cooperation in Agriculture joined hands with a number of units to carry out the activity of "City and County Governors Invite You to Drink Spring Tea", and 11 county mayors such as Yichang City, Enshi City, Chibi City, Zhuxi County, and Yingshan County became "anchors with goods" to help tea enterprises and tea farmers sell tea.
A large number of Internet celebrity anchors also joined the ranks of live streaming tea sellers: on April 6, CCTV news anchor Zhu Guangquan and Taobao "brother with goods" Li Jiaqi helped sell more than 17,000 cans of Enshi Yulu, with a turnover of 1.7265 million yuan; on April 28, Taobao's "first sister with goods" Wei Ya brought goods to Lichuanhong in the live broadcast, and traded 40,000 copies of 2.76 million yuan...
Tea enterprises and tea farmers in Enshi, Yichang and other places have used platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou APP to move the online live broadcast room to the original ecological tea garden and processing workshop to attract the attention of consumers. Mei Yuanhong, general manager of Wufeng Jiming Tea Industry Professional Cooperative, told reporters that the offline sales of spring tea after the listing this year were very dismal, so they tried to live stream the goods, selling more than 700,000 yuan of products in two days, "Spring tea production and sales have doubled, and now the inventory is gone." ”
With the help of the Internet, Hubei tea gradually out of the predicament, according to public information, the current Hubei tea sales volume has exceeded 15% of the same period last year, sales exceeded 14 billion yuan, most of which is sold through online channels.
"Live streaming with goods will become the norm for tea companies." Liu Jincheng said that the ancient "economic artery" of the Wanli Tea Ceremony will therefore become longer and wider, bringing Chinese tea and tea culture to more countries in the world, and will also bring more opportunities and hopes. (End)