Have you ever drunk lemon tea this summer?
Citronium, also known as perfume lemon, is native to Southeast Asia, and the turquoise perfume lemon has a bumpy appearance and a fragrance persistence of 2 times that of yellow lemon. Image credit | The official website of The China Fruit Portal
Yes, lemon tea is "vintage".
Since the 1950s, lemon tea has become popular in the ice room of the Hong Kong tea stall, a simple and easy-to-make drink that has gradually formed a symbol of local food culture. The lemon tea we are familiar with is the Hong Kong-style method of "black tea, yellow lemon with sugar", the black tea is used as a base, and then the sour taste of the yellow lemon is used to increase the refreshing feeling, and the appropriate sugar is added to adjust the taste.
This food culture symbol from Hong Kong's tea restaurant has become a popular drink that everyone is willing to queue up to buy. From Thai forgiveness of green lemon tea, to duck lemon tea, bitter melon lemon tea – the question is, where does lemon tea come from and how long can it be red?
Lemon tea is the "evergreen tree" of the tea drinking world, rich in vitamin C and low in calories. According to the "2021 White Paper on the Development of China's Lemon Tea Industry", nearly 2/3 of lemon tea consumers believe that lemon tea is healthier than milk tea drinks.
In the lemon ingredient list, vitamin C content is highest. Image credit | Pinterest
In 2016, Vita lemon tea from Hong Kong, China, came to the fore in Chinese mainland, focusing on the astringency taste of lemons, releasing advertising videos of the "A Little Astringent" series on social platforms, and at the end of each video, there were models wearing "lemon" or "tea" hats shouting out the slogan of "delicious is a little astringent, real tea + real lemon", which became a popular meme on the Internet, and also derived funny memes, allowing prepackaged lemon tea to enter the vision of young consumers.
Lemon tea solves the cost problem brought by the supply chain to a certain extent, and the materials are more abundant. Guangdong's local perfume lemon is the most popular lemon raw material, making the aroma of tea more prominent, the overall sweetness is sweeter, and the local purchase price is also cheaper. In the choice of tea base, there are not only black teas, but also single fir tea produced in Guangdong (commonly known as "duck feces"), as well as Ceylon black tea and Thai green tea.
This year's popular hand-beaten lemon tea, different from the tea restaurant's frozen lemon tea practice, it is more artificially pounded in the production of the link, the tea maker will be freshly cut perfume lemon slices and ice cubes mixed together to break, add the tea base and sugar and then begin to hand shake, so that lemon and tea aroma fusion, a cup of hand-beaten lemon tea will be made.
The sale of lemon tea is also one of the secrets of success. Driving lemon tea to the "C bit" of tea drinking may be "Thai Green" lemon tea - this lemon tea made of Thai green tea as the base, just replaced the tea base, it is difficult for consumers not to be attracted by visual color, labeled "forgive green" and "fund green" and other labels, even if it is just ordinary lemon green tea, there is a greater space for dissemination.
"Tai Green" lemon tea (aka "Scumbag Lemon Tea"). Linlee's star product "Tai Lu" lemon tea and its accompanying little yellow duck toy in Zhanjiang became a blockbuster lemon tea. The image source | Lemon Food WeChat public account
But in order to pursue appearance, it also put innovative lemon tea into trouble. In June this year, the Shenzhen Market Supervision and Administration Bureau in the "Tai Green" and other 20 batches of samples of lemon tea drinks, 15 batches were unqualified, because "Tai Green" exceeded the standard to add food additives - "sunset yellow", long-term consumption will harm the kidneys and liver. After the "collapse of the house", the popular "Tai Lu" lemon tea gradually disappeared from the lemon tea store menu, suspending sales or developing new drinks.
Samples of "thai green" lemon tea. Image credit | Shenzhen Food safety and drug office
At the same time, there are more and more branded lemon tea stores in Guangdong, such as Linlee In Guangdong, TANING Tart, Wang Lemon in Shenzhen, Lemon Season in Changsha, etc. - after having a certain sales volume in the local area, these brands have expanded to open stores nationwide.
The popularity of hand-played lemon tea has led to a surge in demand for raw materials. Xie Canwu, co-founder of lemon tea brand TANING Tart Lime, once said in an interview that from March 2021, the wholesale price of perfume lemon rose from the original 3 to 6 yuan a catty to 15 to 16 yuan per catty.
But that didn't stop the brand's momentum from expanding. Take Changsha's "Lemon Season", for example, the brand was founded in February 2021 and opened 150 stores in the next four months. According to the official disclosure of Lemon Season, in May 2021 alone, the monthly revenue of a single store of the brand exceeded 230,000 yuan. In early July, Lemon Season received ByteDance's Series A financing worth tens of millions of yuan. Lemon Season mainly adopts the method of joining partnerships to expand.
At the Changsha lemon tea brand Lemon Season store, tea makers are making hand-cranked lemon tea. Gif Source | WeChat public account @ in Changsha
In July 2021, 37 Interactive Entertainment announced its investment in Guangdong lemon tea brand LINLEE. As early as before getting financing, LINLEE's Maoming South Road store in the center of Shanghai had opened, and everyone queued for nearly an hour just for a cup of hand-made lemon tea.
A tea industry practitioner who did not want to be named analyzed that the popularity of LINLEE's Maoming South Road store in Linlee can be traced. First of all, the superior geographical location of the Maoming South Road store, customers can immediately see the shop as soon as they leave the subway mouth of South Shaanxi Road, second, there is a veteran Internet red shop Hongkou Cake Dumpling Food Factory next to the shop, the long queue will drain each other, and the third is the prevailing queue trend in Shanghai, which is easy to attract passers-by to follow the trend.
"This kind of (lemon tea) shop can only be opened in the city center, and the people who work in the company come to buy more," he explains, "walking on the road, ordering a drink in the summer, or a small couple, a family of three shopping, thirsty for a drink." ”
In the Little Red Book search for the keyword "lemon tea", half of the first 10 notes are related to hand-played lemon tea. Gif Source | Little Red Book October 16, 2021
Lemon tea tastes similar, coupled with the bitter taste, it is not suitable for directly into hot drinks. After this summer, the popularity of lemon tea will be marked with a question mark.
Mark, a staff member of a Hong Kong-style tea restaurant in Shanghai's Xuhui District, told Future Preview that Hong Kong-style milk tea and lemon tea are two drinks that diners often order in the store, and 70% of people will order frozen lemon tea. As standard in restaurants, the number of orders for frozen lemon tea has not been reduced by the recent cooling.
Left: August 21, 2021 at 4 p.m. Right: October 16, 2021 at 3 p.m. At the entrance of linlee's Shanghai Maoming South Road store, customers are queuing up to buy lemon tea. Due to the low temperature weather, the flow of passengers is reduced compared to the summer, and customers can wait 5 to 15 minutes after ordering for tea. Photography | Tang Xinyi
For tea drinks, a product with strong seasonality, only making a single product means that the operation is not too risk-resistant. Some stores began to worry about whether lemon tea would "pass". Lin Qing, a tea drinker who runs a lemon tea shop in Shanghai's Xuhui District, told future forecasts that in the first half of 2021, the average number of cups produced by stores a day was about 500 cups, and the queuing time was basically 50 minutes to 2 hours. Considering that fewer and fewer people drink cold drinks after the autumn, they are developing hot drinks based on bubble tea.
Lin Qing believes that lemon tea is irreplaceable. Some customers will buy lemonade for five or six dollars, but it is "not in the same grade" as the lemon tea he sells. "Those lemonades might just mix fructose in it, get some syrup, add some water, add some ice cubes, and you can do it at home." He told Future Vision that his brand has a strict raw material inspection and research and development mechanism, and cares about the freshness of ingredients.
Although several lemon tea brands have emerged, not all of them have tried to expand quickly. Lin Qing's brand is different from Lemon Season's franchise expansion strategy, which is a direct store, and he commented that "franchisees may mess up the brand." On the other hand, he is not too worried about the popularity of lemon tea, "some people drink it this year, and there will definitely be people drinking it next year".
Coca-Cola China launches The Japanese Lemon Sparkling Wine Lemon Road. Image credit | Lemon Road official Weibo
In addition to drinks, lemons also have a new story with sparkling wine. On September 23, 2021, Coca-Cola China launched a low-flavored liquor, lemonade "Lemon-Dou" Japanese sparkling wine. Known as "Lemon Do" in the Japanese market, the wine was first released in the Kyushu region of Japan in May 2018. Now, Coca-Cola has introduced it to China, giving lemon drinks a new choice.
Whether it's lemon tea or lemon wine, the core is to amplify the characteristics of lemons, launch innovative products, cut into niche markets, and find room for dissemination on social media. If you are a new tea enthusiast, perhaps next time you can pay attention to whether the new products launched by brands are all popular according to this path.
(At the request of the interviewees, Mark and Lin Qing are pseudonyms)
—
Text: Tang Xinyi | Editor: Mengni Xing
Proofreader: Li Qiguang | WeChat Editor: Yi Xiaodan
Often click in the watch, more timely access to information Yi