The new tea drink is a bridge for young people to get in touch with traditional tea, and in turn, the profound cultural heritage of traditional tea can also help the new tea drink to gallop smoothly on the road of innovation. Therefore, the collision between new tea drinks and traditional tea drinks is not only a path for the tea industry to learn from each other's strengths, but also a channel for the two to be renewed and upgraded.
In 2024, the new tea drink will enter the "Warring States Era", and it is the general trend to break the old and create the new, and the outlet of the traditional tea industry will gradually be revealed. In order to seek a way to break the circle of the traditional tea industry from the new tea market, "Talking Tea" launched: Looking at the tea industry from the "new" - a series of columns for new tea drinks. This article focuses on the development of tea-containing beverages.
A few days ago, the new tea drink, which had been silent for three years, finally ushered in the "second share", but the capital market did not "treat each other with courtesy".
Less than 1 hour after the listing rang the bell, the share price of Tea Baidao fell by more than 30%, the market value "shrunk" by 4 billion Hong Kong dollars, and the net profit fell for about 3 years.
Behind the breakout of tea Baidao, investors are becoming more and more cautious about the investment attitude of new tea drinks. As a representative of "franchise profit", Tea Baidao and Gu Ming have also made many franchisees have a wait-and-see attitude due to the food safety problems exposed in March 15, and the trust crisis in the upstream and downstream seems to have become a major hidden danger for the continued expansion of new tea drinks.
So, from the perspective of the tea industry, what is the overall development situation of the tea-containing beverage track, and is there still a need and space for the tea industry to deepen in this field?
△ Tea Baidao broke on the first day of listing (Image source: Baidu Stock Market)
Society + enterprise + consumer "three-way rush"
The prospects are promising, but the market challenges cannot be ignored
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According to the market situation, the breakthrough of tea Baidao this time cannot stop the pace of development of tea-containing beverages.
As a consumable, consumer demand for tea-containing beverages is "endless". Cost-effective, easy to carry, and immediately drinkable, iced tea, oriental leaves, and other pre-mixed teas have long become the "life needs" that people often buy;
There is a positive interaction between supply and demand, and the tea-containing beverage market has a farther future. In addition to maintaining the traditional production of pure tea and flavored tea drinks, enterprises are also actively creating tea + coffee, wine and other types of beverages, seeking new growth points across borders. At present, the two curves of supply and demand in the tea-containing beverage market are in the relationship of "it escapes and chases", and in the process of meeting the existing or preset consumer needs, various companies are also constantly injecting vitality into the tea-containing beverage market.
△ The classification of tea-containing beverages in the table refers to the standard of "Tea Beverages" (GB/T 21733-2008) "Basic Requirements for Terminology Classification of Ready-made Tea Beverages" (T/CTSS 75-2023)), and the products are incomplete statistics and are only used for examples.
The market for tea-containing beverages with sufficient demand and supply has also attracted the attention of relevant social organizations and institutions, and its attention can be seen from the birth of more and more refined and targeted standards. A series of new standards to standardize the definition and production process of ready-made tea beverages, such as the "Basic Requirements for Terminology and Classification of Ready-made Tea Beverages" (T/CTSS 75-2023) and the "Ready-made Tea Beverages - Tea Raw Materials" (T/CTSS 76-2023) issued by the China Tea Society, were officially implemented last month, guiding a clearer production direction for the two types of tea-containing beverages. The tea-containing beverage market is becoming more and more specialized, standardized, and constantly moving towards "maturity".
△ Screenshot of relevant standards for tea-containing beverages (Image source: National Group Standard Information Platform)
Looking at the three ends of society, enterprises and consumers, the development of tea-containing beverages is still vigorous, but it cannot be blinded by this.
In the current domestic market, pre-mixed tea is showing a floating trend to the first- and second-tier markets, and freshly made tea is trying to sink. Pre-mixed tea is facing the problem that consumers do not pay for the price increase, the price of the same quality is not as attractive as the ready-made drink, and the freshly made tea is also in the sinking market with low demand for products, and the new profit is difficult to support the rapid development and further expansion of the ready-made tea market.
The market for 100 billion tea-containing beverages is becoming more and more crowded
How to break free from the shackles of homogenization
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According to iiMedia Research, the size of China's new tea market is expected to reach 374.93 billion yuan in 2025. The external competition in the tea-containing beverage market is constantly pouring in, and the internal competition is also constantly "fighting". New tea-containing beverage brands continue to emerge, and pre-mixed tea and freshly made tea are also showing a crossover trend, Wahaha has opened a freshly made milk tea shop, and brands such as Naixue and Heytea produce and sell pre-mixed tea...... The competition in the tea-containing beverage market is becoming increasingly fierce, and the problem of homogenization is becoming more and more prominent. From the perspective of commonality, the methods and methods presented in the "method of breaking the game" of various tea-containing beverages may be used as an empirical reference.
△Wahaha freshly made tea drinks and Nai Xue, Hey Tea pre-mixed tea (Image source: Business That Little Thing, Meal Xiao Yibai, Unicorn Mall)
The supply chain has been comprehensively upgraded to get rid of the constraints of homogenization
Upstream, midstream and downstream will make full efforts to drive the upgrading of the supply chain. The upstream improves the quality and controls the "raw materials", such as blending pre-blended tea raw materials in multiple production areas to seek a richer and non-bitter taste, and the Naixue Longjing tea series of freshly made tea uses high-quality Mingqian tea leaves. Midstream technology improvement has promoted product upgrades, such as Dali pre-mixed tea, which uses 100% original tea extraction, only takes the first tea soup, and strives to restore the original taste of tea, and Bawang Chaji freshly made tea innovatively uses direct extraction to make the tea taste stronger and the taste better. In the downstream, there is an online and offline multi-channel layout, gradually realizing full coverage of sales channels such as live broadcasts, mini programs, stores, and vending machines, and constantly opening up sales channels.
Side by side traditional tea emits a new collision
Grasping the "tea" element for differentiated creation is also a major feature of tea-containing beverages to explore and break the game. Many brands choose to use famous tea varieties as the selling point of their products. For example, brands such as Qiuli and Chaxiaokai have launched pre-mixed tea drinks such as Dahongpao, Tieguanyin, and Zhengshan Xiaozhong, while Lele Tea has recently launched a new freshly made tea product "Yanxiang Oolong", emphasizing the famous and high-quality Dahongpao tea base in Fujian, and emphasizing the "Songyan Longan Fragrance" of tea soup, so as to enhance the health and high-quality attributes of tea-containing beverages.
Fancy marketing to create a "hit"
In addition, various enterprises also explore a variety of marketing methods according to the characteristics of their products, such as designing selling points based on seasonal characteristics, Yuanqi Forest launches fiber tea in summer to cool off, Wahaha sugar-free tea series highlights inheritance in publicity, tells the story of the integration of thousand-year-old tea culture and modern technology, and Shanghai aunt combines traditional hairpins and tea drinking culture to highlight the beauty of national style...... There is no fixed formula for achieving a "hot product", the right time and place are indispensable, and tea-containing beverage companies are constantly exploring new ways to make products gain more attention.
△ Yuanqi Forest "Fiber Tea", Shanghai Auntie Hairpin Series Tea (Image source: FBIF Food and Beverage Innovation, Shanghai Auntie)
For example, in terms of portability, cost-effectiveness and other basic needs, Yike Huoquan designs pre-mixed tea that can be easily brewed with one twist and shake to enhance the sense of experience and ceremony; lifestyle". Therefore, in the environment of fierce competition and difficulty in further expansion, tea-containing beverages can also find more winning possibilities in the market as long as they have confidence and firmly seek new development methods.
Finally, back to the listing of this tea Baidao. In fact, the IPO road of new tea drinks has always been bumpy, and Nai Xue, the "first share" of new tea drinks, also plummeted when it was listed in 2021, and only entered the "profit era" after a year and a half; The recent annual profit answer sheet handed over for the first time after Naixue's listing also shows that the future of the new tea drink is still worth looking forward to.
△ Nai Xue's tea 2023 financial report (Image source: Nai Xue's tea)
(*Because many representative pre-mixed tea brands operate multiple types of products, such as Nongfu Spring, Uni-President, Master Kong, etc., which have already been listed with "multi-product comprehensive strength", the current pre-mixed tea or tea-containing beverage market reference is not intuitive, and will not be analyzed in this article.) ）
This time, there are no surprises in the IPO of new tea drinks, but it is still preparing gifts for the market, and brands such as Mixue Bingcheng, Shanghai Auntie, and Gu Ming are lining up to be listed. In addition, while the products and marketing methods are constantly innovating and upgrading, the new tea drink is also actively trying to cross-border cooperation and going overseas to seek increments, and the possibility of the market continuing to burst out with infinite vitality is not weaker than the so-called "saturation and continuous collapse crisis".
△Tea Baidao Seoul store in South Korea and Heytea New York store promotion (Image source: FBIF Food and Beverage Innovation, New York Chaobang)
Some netizens called out in the comment area of the listing of Tea Baidao: "TheShy will save Tea Baidao again." This is the long-term effect of the co-branding boom between Tea Baidao and the gods of the e-sports circle in September last year, whether it is blessing or irony, the co-branding of Tea Baidao has achieved the effect of being out of the circle. And this marketing originated from Tea Baidao, and it will only be itself that "saves" Tea Baidao. From the rapid closure and rectification of the store after March 15, the establishment of a new management mechanism, and the joint cooperation with the game "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" after the launch, it can also be found that it is still striving for a new hope of "surfacing", and no one can completely deny the future of Chabaidao. Therefore, by constantly improving themselves and seeking new development, enterprises will have more possibilities in the market.
The same applies to tea-containing beverages. In the story of Tea Baidao, it can be found that no matter what kind of subdivision of the field of cultivation, we should seek profitability at the same time, pay attention to quality assurance, consumer demand and the hot spots of the times, so as to achieve a double harvest of benefits and brand reputation, in this development situation, capital may also turn around one day in the future, embrace more tea-containing beverages, and boost the rapid development of the mainland tea industry.
Editor-in-charge / Lin Jie
Editorial Board Member / Wang Miaorong