New tea drinks promote the development of tea raw materials, and the flywheel effect appears

Reporter Yang Xiaojing

Xinhuanet, the Tea Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Naixue's Tea recently jointly released the "2022 New Tea High-quality Development Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"
).
The "Report" shows that in 2022, the market size of the new tea beverage industry will exceed 290 billion yuan, there will be about 450,000 stores nationwide, and the annual consumption of tea will exceed 200,000 tons.

At present, there is no representative international tea brand, and this is also the opportunity of major new tea brands, looking forward to new tea brands to innovate together and promote Chinese tea culture to the world
.

The new tea brand has become a window for spreading traditional tea culture

With the continuous change of consumers' tea drinking methods, the new tea beverage industry is booming, from the supply side, constantly innovate tea products, and promote the transformation of tea from traditional brewed drinks to new tea drinks, so as to meet the diversified needs
of consumers, especially young consumers.

The "Report" shows that in 2022, the market size of the new tea beverage industry will exceed 290 billion yuan, and the new tea drink brand represented by Nai Xue has become a window
for spreading traditional tea culture.
The new tea beverage industry has effectively promoted the innovation and development of Chinese tea culture by shaping a new way for young people to drink tea, allowing more young people to understand tea and
fall in love with tea.

The data shows that 46.
90% of the post-90s generation said that they knew more traditional tea in the process of new tea consumption, 44.
68% said they understood different tea categories, 54.
68% said they felt the strong charm of Chinese tea culture, and 45.
94% said that they had a greater interest in
Chinese traditional culture.

Nai Xue's tea first promoted Chaoshan single fir "duck poop fragrance", from a niche circle to become an industry hit, its popularity also allows the industry to see the innovative imagination and market potential
of niche tea.

Strictly control standards to promote the quality of the upstream supply chain of tea

New tea drinks continue to promote the penetration and popularization of tea culture among young users, and at the same time, users are paying more and more attention to the "use of tea"
in new tea drinks.
According to the report, attention to quality is the most prominent characteristic
of the younger generation of consumers.
Among the post-90s group, 66.
14% expressed concern about the use of raw leaf tea in new tea drinks, and 60.
25% expressed rejection of new tea products
using tea powder.

High-quality products allow consumers to quickly understand the flavor of good tea, and consumers' requirements for good tea have also prompted new tea brands to continuously improve
their raw material selection standards.
In order to better control the stability of raw materials, new tea beverage brands also began to reverse penetrate the tea raw material supply chain, head brands to the core production areas for base layout, the establishment of brand exclusive production base, from the source of raw material quality standards, the brand began to establish tea raw material production base, tea raw material quality upgrading further accelerated
.
The "Report" mentioned that some new tea brands evaluate and test the quality of raw materials as many as 120 indicators, including sensory indicators, microbial indicators, physical and chemical indicators, pollutant indicators, mycotoxin indicators, etc
.

Most of the good tea raw materials selected by new tea beverage enterprises come from Chaoshan in Guangdong, Yunnan, Hubei, Sichuan, Fujian, Alishan in Taiwan and other tea producing areas, and the footprints of tea search gradually outline the brand's unique "good tea map"
.
In terms of category coverage, the raw materials of new tea drinking tea have gradually expanded from black tea and oolong tea to the six traditional Chinese tea categories (green tea, black tea, black tea, white tea, yellow tea, and oolong tea).

Controlling the upstream is only the first step in the high-quality development of new tea raw materials, after building its own tea garden and improving access standards, the next problem is how to use the raw materials to meet the multi-dimensional requirements
of new tea drinks for taste, aroma, sweetness and harmony with fresh milk and fruit.
To this end, on the basis of the traditional tea-making process, the company continues to develop new technologies to maximize the preservation of tea taste, improve tea aroma, reduce bitterness, and redefine tea taste
.
For example, "Jasmine First Snow" is a product produced by a new blending technique, which combines green tea from Yunnan, Fujian and Sichuan with the original leaves of jasmine flowers in Hengxian County, and recombines them into a unique front, middle and tail notes; "Duck poop aroma" is also a combination of deep, medium and shallow baking gradients of duck poop aroma to form a special tea base
.

Drive the value-added of the tea industry and help rural revitalization

With the entry of head tea brands into the tea industry chain, the contradiction between the decentralized operation of upstream retail production and the standardization of downstream raw materials is becoming more and more obvious
.
Tea farmers in Fenghuangshan, Chaozhou, Guangdong, have been making tea for generations, and every household produces and sells it by itself, with a low degree of standardization, and the customer group is mainly
retail households that produce 100-200 jin.
Previously, the original productivity could not cope with the purchase volume of 100 tons of new tea brands, and more and more new tea farmers in Phoenix Mountain began to gradually return to their hometowns and establish an industrial production system
.

In addition to the "duck poop fragrance", the niche tea categories such as Bantianyao, Liupao tea, new jade flower tea, Qingguanyin, and Baiya Qilan have also been developed into milk tea or fruit tea by tea
brands.
The research and development of raw materials for new tea drinks not only creates new demand for tea, but also promotes regional business cards, driving many "niche teas" into the field of vision of consumers, and enhancing the popularity and reputation of raw material production areas
.

According to data estimates from Huajing Industry Research Institute, Zhiyan Consulting and Compilation Group, the new tea beverage industry will purchase more than 200,000 tons of upstream tea raw materials in 2022, directly driving the added value of the tea industry to exceed 10 billion yuan
.
It is understood that Nai Xue's tea purchase volume in 2021 is about 700 tons, and the tea purchase volume in 2022 is nearly 900 tons
.
The new tea beverage enterprises have greatly increased the income level of the acquired tea farmers, promoted the rapid development of the local tea industry, and comprehensively helped rural revitalization
.

New tea drinks and traditional tea drinks are integrated with each other, and the new tea drinks are a breakthrough in the thinking of people in the traditional tea industry, and also make great changes in the technology, products and consumption patterns of China's tea upstream, promoting the upgrading
of the industry.
The new tea drink is also a consumer cultivation for traditional Chinese tea, attracting some consumers to "drink tea", and cultivating consumers to drink Chinese tea by integrating traditional tea
drinks.
From this point of view, new Chinese tea drinks have made a greater
contribution to "tea culture".

In the next stage, digitalization and health will be the two major trends
in the application and development of tea raw materials.
In line with consumers' requirements for low-sugar health, new tea beverage companies have made efforts to "sugar competition"
while upgrading tea raw materials.
Some brands have used zero-calorie, zero-calorie natural monk fructose as a product sugar substitute to significantly reduce the sugar content of tea and accurately meet consumers' healthy demand
for high-quality tea.

China Food News(2023.
01.
16.
07)

(Responsible editor: Luo Chen)