Coffee can fire, and the new herbal tea backed by traditional culture, why not?

Text: Yingbao

Source: new weekly app (ID: app newweekly)

After milk tea and coffee, herbal tea is also emerging in the online red world.

Searching for “herbal tea” in xiaohongshu, you will no longer see small shops and large iron pots containing herbal tea hidden in the old urban area, but the shop decoration of INS style or retro style, as well as the changeable forms of herbal tea – pulling flowers on herbal tea, shaking herbal tea with wine mixer, cocktail wine or milk tea with herbal tea flavor, and mixing herbal tea with fruit juice

Behind the new herbal tea, there is often a young boss who drops the herbal tea into a delicate goblet and inserts a piece of lemon at the mouth of the cup; Most of the customers in the store are trendsetters who come together to explore the store and take photos.

On the microblog, there are also topics around the # coffee shop at the end of the ## coffee shop ## how to make Guangdong herbal tea advanced # and other new herbal tea, which have received more than 35 million readers.

Herbal tea, known as the “earliest online red drink”, is following the iteration of market preferences and the entry of young consumers and operators, re integrating with the times and sparking with trendy elements.

Can the new type of herbal tea, after the milk tea and coffee economy, become the next pop?

When you think the herbal tea shop is still like this, it has quietly changed/ Graphic insect creativity

Baibian herbal tea

Most of the new herbal tea shops are similar to “wenheyou”. They are modern core buildings dressed in the coat of the 1980s. This sense of abruptness is the love of young people – missing the old times and inseparable from the high and convenient life at present.

The application of this logic to the development of new herbal tea is the mixture of modern culture and traditional culture, such as “coffee” × Herbal tea “.

When coffee first entered the Chinese market in the 19th century, in Guangdong, one of the birthplaces of herbal tea, locals privately named it “fangui herbal tea” (Western herbal tea) because they didn’t know what coffee was. After more than a hundred years of coffee culture in China, who can think of it. This once noble drink has evolved into a daily cup of “life-saving water” for students and young white-collar workers.

The combination of coffee and herbal tea has been revived. The most common way is to mix two liquids, such as “Siraitia grosvenorii American style”, “chrysanthemum latte”, “grass root bamboo cane latte” and “orange peel fat sea American style”. Most of the selected are sweet herbal tea, which will not add bitterness to bitterness when mixed with coffee. After drinking, sip your mouth and return sweetness.

A bowl of Siraitia grosvenorii iced American coffee moistens your throat and refreshes you/ Fan GUI herbal tea

If you place an order for “latte herbal tea”, you will probably receive a bowl of drinks with pulled flowers. As for why it is “bowl”? Herbal tea, of course, is authentic only when you drink it in a chicken bowl.

In addition to herbal tea, desserts such as coconut juice and Guiling cream sold in traditional herbal tea shops also appear on the menu of new herbal tea shops, but their names become “Guiling cream latte”, “latte double skin milk”, “horseshoe Shuang latte”, and the “raw coconut latte” under current normalization.

Medlar, glutinous rice balls and latte, I only dare to think about this combination in my dream/ Chaoji Hall

Since there are coffee ingredients, it is natural to send out the coffee machine. Some netizens poured Xia Sangju granules into an Italian coffee machine to extract a cup of “concentrated Xia Sangju” – using the low-temperature extraction technology of coffee to make “extracted herbal tea”, which is reported to retain the flavor of Chinese herbal medicine to the greatest extent.

Another netizen added ice to bansha herbal tea and named it “Bingguang style”, which once caused an imitation boom in April this year# Cantonese read the ice Cantonese # topics that would be silent and received 43.27 million readers on the hot search list.

Guangzhou people dare not speak… / network screenshot

Young people are keen on “early C and late a”. Coffee and wine are indispensable × The same goes for herbal tea.

“Cocktail herbal tea” is based on foreign wine and added with medicinal materials for cooking herbal tea. Netizens share the most “orange peel golden wine”, “balsam pear tequila”, “chamomile golden soup power” and so on.

The playing method of the bar reappears in the herbal tea shop. Medicinal materials and foreign wine are poured into the shaker. With the impact of ice, “herbal tea wine” is formed in the vessel and appears in the foreign wine cup. Most bosses will put a piece of mint leaf or fruit at the mouth of the cup for decoration; Some bosses also ignited on the surface of “herbal tea wine”, and the shaking flame suddenly gave people the illusion that “this is a row of bullet wine”.

Don’t be afraid, this is herbal tea, which is healthy (should)/ Loeng CAA herbal tea shop

“New tea drink” × As the third form of new herbal tea, “herbal tea” is a mixture of lemon tea, fruit juice, milk tea and other drinks with Chinese herbal medicine. Compared with the first two, the flavor is more mild, and the consumption scenes tend to the streets, such as “licorice lemon tea”, “kapok Lime Tea”, “kumquat juice Seven Star tea”, etc.

Brown sugar, ginger sugar and sugarcane juice, which are not herbs, but are considered by Cantonese to have conditioning effects, have also been added to new tea drinks to replace fructose.

Guangdong is a big province of herbal tea. New herbal tea was also born here, and has the trend of large-scale development, rather than the marketing strategy of a single store.

Enter the keywords “herbal tea, coffee” and “herbal tea wine” in xiaohongshu, and there are 1000-4000 notes respectively. Those who take the initiative to buy new herbal tea are young people who have the courage to try new ones and are interested in the traditional culture of Guangfu.

Guangzhou, Shantou, Foshan, Zhuhai and other cities have representative “coffee cool tea shops” such as chaojitang, fangui herbal tea and Manchu herbal tea, as well as “herbal tea bars” such as Loong CAA herbal tea shop and YDM Yidi Temple herbal tea shop. Although some bars do not specialize in “herbal tea wine”, they will launch one or two similar products to attract customers. Zhou Rongji, the original Guangzhou brand of “herbal tea and lemon tea”, has 7 chain stores.

Add medicinal materials to lemon tea, “add tea to tea”/ Zhou Rongji

Buddhist herbal tea,

Why suddenly awaken?

The history of herbal tea is said to be more than 5000 years, and the real theoretical foundation was in the Jin Dynasty more than 1700 years ago. At that time, malaria was prevalent in Lingnan area. Ge Hongnan, a pharmacist, rushed to Luofu Mountain in Huizhou, Guangdong Province today to create herbal tea based on the health preservation theory of traditional Chinese medicine.

The difference between herbal tea and traditional Chinese medicine tea soup lies in its daily nature, that is, there is no clear dose limit and no specific doctor’s guidance, which is between drugs and drinks. Herbal tea was soon integrated into people’s life. Herbal tea shops formed a gathering effect in the streets. In the era when the trend of milk tea and coffee had not yet begun, herbal tea became a “net red drink” in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao – reducing fire or dampness, treating diseases or relieving greed, sweet or sour or bitter, hot or cold. Herbal tea can meet all kinds of scenes and needs.

In 2006, the annual output of herbal tea drinks in China quadrupled to 4 million tons; In 2010, the annual sales volume reached 25 million tons, surpassing the sales volume of Coca Cola in China in the same year; In 2012, the sales of canned herbal tea JDB exceeded 20 billion yuan.

Behind the summit is the downhill road. According to Guangzhou Daily, the number of herbal tea shops in Guangzhou has decreased year by year since 2017. Taking the 71 year old Guangzhou herbal tea brand “Ping’an hall” as an example, there were more than 100 direct stores and more than 400 franchise stores at its peak. Now there are only about 200 stores, with a shrinkage rate of 60%.

Once, herbal tea in Guangdong was densely spread and customers came in an endless stream, which is in sharp contrast to today’s deserted situation.

The plight of Ping’an hall is the epitome of the herbal tea industry. The rise in rent and labor expenditure are all due to it. But why can milk tea shops withstand the cost pressure and open more and more, but herbal tea shops can’t? In the final analysis, herbal tea is out of date——

The bitter and single taste and simple packaging without memory points deter young people. They would rather drink a new type of tea that is not very healthy and often costs 20 or 30 yuan than a cup of health preserving herbal tea that costs 10 yuan.

Consumers continue to lose, herbal tea shops dare not raise prices, which will accelerate the loss. The rising price of raw materials along with the price curve and the constantly compressed profit of herbal tea have formed a vicious closed loop.

Network redness is the outlet of herbal tea industry. At present, the novelty is magnificent, and the things with gimmicks can focus attention. The innovation of new tea and the successful precedent of momentum provide inspiration for herbal tea to some extent.

Before the emergence of shops such as “coffee herbal tea”, canned herbal tea brands were trying to cross the border.

In the summer of 2021, taking advantage of the scale of domestic bubble water market, it entered the east wind of “10 billion club” and is launching “herbal tea bubble water”; In the same year, Wang Laoji launched “health preserving and brewing beer”. Earlier in 2017, he launched the offline tea shop “1828 Wang Laoji”, shouting to sell herbal tea by selling milk tea; Baiyunshan Xingqun pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, launched “summer mulberry chrysanthemum American coffee” in April this year.

Market feedback brings confidence to the herbal tea industry. According to people.com, on the first day of the opening of Baiyun Mountain Xingqun coffee flash shop, hundreds of people came to punch in and watch the live broadcast online, with more than 150000 people.

Summer mulberry chrysanthemum ice American style, one cup down, the fire inside and outside the body fell/ Star cluster summer mulberry Chrysanthemum

No matter how the actual sales volume is, these new herbal teas that sound like dark cuisine have been seen by the “Z generation”, the main force of consumption. Recently, new herbal teas such as “coffee herbal tea” have sprung up, which is inevitable.

Marketing cannon fodder or Changhong?

Will the new herbal tea be a flash in the pan or will it become a long-term trend?

Coffee and herbal tea are often compared. “Coffee herbal tea” is also the new herbal tea category of DIY that netizens love most, because they have in common, in addition to bitter taste and similar color, they both have profound cultural heritage.

In 1886, the first coffee shop in Shanghai opened in Hongkou District, which became the beginning of the spread of coffee culture in China. Coffee is the embodiment of western culture. The book “making foreign rice” published in the late Qing Dynasty mentioned that while Chinese chefs learn to make coffee, they also learn to bake bread, make pastries and roast steak.

Therefore, when Chinese people accept coffee culture, they are actually accepting western culture, and even regard it as “high-end culture”. Just like the new world restaurant opened in Beijing in 1914, the top floor with the best landscape is a cafe.

The popularity of coffee culture is also the popularity of western culture/ Graphic insect creativity

Herbal tea has a longer history and a richer story behind it – emotion brand has always been a natural brand marketing advantage.

The national tide economy, which has soared with the rise of national self-confidence in recent years, is also the east wind for the development of new herbal tea.

According to the 2022 report on domestic consumption trend of young people released by jd.com, young consumers have purchased more domestic goods this year than in previous years. After 1995, the proportion of domestic users increased by 11% year-on-year; The ratio of total users of domestic goods to imported goods is 1.7, which is 1.3 in 2021. In addition, according to the data released by CCTV finance and economics, domestic consumers under the age of 35 created a consumption growth of 65% in 2021, while the group aged 20-39 exceeded 380 million.

This means that a large number of young consumers with stronger purchasing power and more “eccentric” domestic products will promote the sales growth of domestic products in various fields. At present, the sales of domestic kitchenware, fresh food, household appliances and other brands are growing rapidly. In the future, the new herbal tea will also be an important part of the national tide economy.

Coffee culture can fire, and the new herbal tea backed by traditional culture, why not/ Visual China

In addition, the new herbal tea shops, cafes and milk tea shops all have the advantage of third space.

When the traditional herbal tea shop began to decline in 2017, there was media analysis. One of the reasons was that the herbal tea shop with few (or even no) tables and chairs and narrow space could not meet the increasingly picky social needs of young people. The popularity of new tea shops has just completed the extension of the third space. Nowadays, the new herbal tea shop that fills the “space gap” is gradually becoming a look that young people like.

On the other hand, the functional categories of herbal tea are more subdivided and diversified. There are targeted products for consumer needs such as dispelling dampness, protecting liver, nourishing face and eating.

The substantive function of coffee is only refreshing, and milk tea is not. In contrast, the new herbal tea seems to better cater to another normalized “healthy diet” trend. China food safety network shows that the scale of China’s health food market will exceed 800 billion yuan in 2020 and is expected to exceed 1140.8 billion yuan by 2025 – another huge market.

When we are worried that the new type of tea with high sugar is unhealthy, the new type of herbal tea with sugar cane and ginger sugar instead of fructose appears at the right time/ Zhou Rongji

To a certain extent, the new herbal tea integrates the main advantages of coffee, milk tea and new tea drinks. At the same time, it is backed by the two major consumer markets of national tide economy and healthy economy. With the topic heat of online fermentation, it has the potential to become the “next online black tea drinking outlet”.

I don’t know if there will be a derivative word of “early C and late a” on the Internet – “early C, l and late a”. “L” means Liangcha, which is the official English of “herbal tea” determined in 2019.

After staying up late to write this article, I’m going to buy a cup of herbal tea to reduce the fire.

reference material

[1] “Ice Canton style” network is popular. Can Guangdong herbal tea break through the Jedi| Guangzhou Daily