Tea on the Suntoli nugget bag to make tea: with its own popular attributes, into the high-end upgrade pseudo-proposition

On July 12, Chali and Suntory said that they had launched a joint gift box of oolong tea and cooperated at the supply chain end.

In the eyes of the industry, Tea is optimistic about Suntory's technology in the field of tea drinks. Tan Qiong, the founder of ChaLi Tea, also said that Suntory's oolong tea drink preserves the original aroma and sweetness, which is the common quality pursuit of both sides.

The positioning of tea as a "high-end tea bag" requires the empowerment of industrialization and standardization. Suntory layout has launched oolong tea drinks for 40 years, and the strength of industrial tea production should not be underestimated. However, industry insiders believe that tea bags are caused by a "misunderstanding", with their own convenience and industrial attributes, consumer cognition is a popular low-end entry tea, it is difficult to have high-end attributes, consumers are difficult to pay for "high-end".

Big names, push new products, improve the quality of the supply chain

Chali said that the cooperation with Suntory includes two aspects: one is the pioneer cooperation and the launch of the summer joint gift box. The second is strategic cooperation in the supply chain. Chali is building a tea industry research center in Guangzhou, a finishing deep processing production and manufacturing center, covering fully automated production, research and development center, and international tea academy, and the two sides will jointly develop higher quality high-end tea in the future.

China Tea small grain tea operation, Guangzhou Hemu Culture Co., Ltd. director Chen Tiandong believes that the production of tea bags in tea, the technical level is relatively simple, and suntory cooperation, tea is looking at Suntory's technology in the field of tea drinking.

It is understood that Chali was founded in 2013, and the core product is the original leaf bag tea. The upstream supply chain link in tea is relatively simple. According to the official website, the tea leaves in the tea come from the 7 tea garden bases in cooperation, including Sichuan Ya'an Black Bamboo, Hangzhou Xinchang Mantou Mountain, Fujian Anxi Daping Township, Yunnan Puer Longtan, Anhui Huangshan Peiyuan Village, Yunnan Fengqing Fengshan Town, fujian Fuding Diantou Town. And there is only 1 self-built tea research room, which has established the industry standard of tea bags, and the picked tea leaves have been completed in the tea research room to complete the production, blending and grading, finishing and other core technologies.

Suntory has obvious advantages at the supply chain level. The relevant person in charge of Suntory said that in 1981, Suntory officially launched oolong tea drinks and entered China in 1997. The raw materials of the products are mainly from Wuyishan and Anxi in Fujian. Tea ingredients must meet the double standard of 460 tests in Japan and 65 in China to enter the factory. Among them, high-temperature extraction, constant temperature preservation and other technical processes can keep the quality of tea drinks consistent.

As far as Chali is concerned, it is necessary to jointly achieve a breakthrough. Tan Qiong once said that in the early stage of development, it encountered a bottleneck period and expanded new consumers through cooperation with other brands.

In the past two years, the development of tea has improved slightly. At present, Chali has completed the omni-channel layout, more than 10 online platforms are available, and offline has been stationed in more than 7,000 hotels such as Intercontinental and Marriott, more than 5,000+ corporate pantries, more than 2,000 chain restaurants, as well as OLE, Hema, Mingchuang Premium, and other chain new retail, and opened three direct brand retail experience stores around the Greater Bay Area.

At the end of June, Chali completed a new round of financing of hundreds of millions of yuan, led by GGV Jiyuan Capital, the leading investor of the B round, Country Garden Venture Capital, continued to raise bets, and Sina Weibo and old shareholder Yikai Capital followed suit. The financing will be used to accelerate the supply chain tea deep processing technology innovation and brand building.

However, according to the official website of Chali, the current valuation of Chali is only 500 million yuan.

Tea bags come with popular attributes, high-end or pseudo-propositions

Tea continues to increase the attributes of high-end tea bags, but in the view of Zhu Danpeng, an analyst in the Chinese food industry, it is a little difficult for tea bags to make high-end products "out of the circle". High-end positioning bag tea is somewhat embarrassing, young people can't see it, old tea customers feel that tea is not good, this positioning is more like pseudo-innovation, pseudo-upgrade.

It is understood that tea bags are caused by a "misunderstanding", and its biggest attribute is convenience. In 1908, in order to promote tea products, the American tea merchant Thomas made some tea samples with silk bags, and some customers directly used them to make tea. Thomas opened a new sales model and replaced silk with gauze as a convenience product.

Luo Jun, founder of the "Tea Aroma Book" brand, said in his book "Chinese Tea Code" that a big opportunity for tea bags (tea bags) to flourish is the emergence of chain stores. Tea bags are convenient for more people to buy, and convenience is conducive to rapid consumption and popularization. The resulting Lipton became the leader of Western tea brands, almost becoming synonymous with tea bags, and a sign that tea entered Western industrial civilization.

Chen Tiandong said that consumers' traditional minds on tea bags are considered to be "Lipton" and have formed a low-end cognition. Therefore, consumers will not pay for "high-end" tea bags. "I can afford to drink and feel that the price is like this, and there is no face to send it out." Can't afford to drink feel that the price is high. ”

It is worth noting that Lipton also began to decline. Although it is the first brand of tea bags, it is facing the embarrassment of being stripped. Unilever CHIEF Executive Alan Jope said the divestiture of this large tea business would include an IPO, business spin-off, (new) partnership or sale.

At present, there is still a certain space for tea bags in the Chinese market. The data shows that in 2019, the online market size of China's tea bags was 5.03 billion yuan, accounting for 21.4% of the online tea market of 23.5 billion, with the change of diversified consumption scenarios and consumer demand, it will exceed 10 billion yuan in 2020, and the market potential is huge.

Tea has also valued the mass market. Tan Qiong once said in an interview: "On the basis of dividing China's tea drinking population into five levels, the product quality is very high, so that 92% of the population can trust ChaLi's products on the basis of not knowing anything." ”

Luo Jun believes that tea bags are at odds with high-end. According to its "China Code Check": "Tea bags are very convenient to use, and after use, it does not leave tea residue that is difficult to clean, it changes tea from a ceremonial drink to a convenient drink, and it also enables multinational leaf packers to standardize their products." This standardization, which has been hyped up in advertising, has greatly reduced the demand for high-grade tea. ”

This article originated from Blue Whale Finance