Tea Yan Yuese is out of the circle again. This time it’s because of the opening of a teahouse.
“During the initial business period, the visitor flow of the teahouse was quite good, and there was a certain degree of discussion on the social platform.”. Tea Yan Yuese expressed satisfaction with the newly opened “xiaoshenxian teahouse”.
A few years ago, when I mentioned the tea house, I thought of either “a tea club where a group of people came in and out in suits” or “a tea house where a group of people rubbed cards and carried tea cups with one hand”, which seemed to be out of fashion.
The introduction of Starbucks’ concept of “third space” has given teahouses an opportunity to upgrade their tea space. Many teahouse brands have made their own innovations in tea drinking methods, store scenes, service extension and other links. Now, the new tea house is regarded as a new business growth point by the new tea head brand.
This time, the new teahouse brand that wants to be the “Starbucks” of Chinese tea has grasped the traffic password.
The definition of “new teahouse” in this article: a teahouse brand that has entered the shopping center, provides Chinese pure tea ready-made drinks and tea related products / services, and innovates and upgrades the store design or business model.
How many players are there in the new teahouse?
China’s current tea consumption market is booming. According to the 2022 Research Report on the ready-made tea industry released by machimang Research Institute, the number of ready-made tea stores in China has exceeded 500000 in 2021, and the annual consumption amount in the national market has exceeded 140billion yuan.
According to the Tianyan survey data, before the outbreak, the number of registered companies in domestic teahouses increased by more than 20000 annually, with a compound annual growth rate of 33.81%. After the outbreak, the number of registered companies still increased by more than 17000 annually.
At a time when the consumption prospect is good and the homogenization of new tea drinking business is serious, the expansion of new “fresh blood” teahouses is accelerated. According to the monitoring of Yingshang big data, the overall on-off ratio of teahouse brands was 2.41 in 2021, far exceeding the average level of drinks.
According to the differences of tea space business models, the new teahouses can be divided into three types: high-end private teahouses, new social teahouses and 24-hour sharing teahouses.
High end private teahouses: focus on business needs, provide high-end and private space services, and adopt the membership system and box hour billing mode. The representative brands include Miao Pinji, Dayi teahouse, Yinxi teahouse, etc.
new style social teahouse: it is light on business and tends to meet leisure and social needs. It adopts open independent seats, bar table brewing area, and the hourly single person charging mode. Representative brands include tea’stone, boiled leaf, etc.
24-hour sharing teahouse: with the help of Internet technology, it provides intelligent short-term space leasing services, which has the characteristics of “online order, 24-hour operation, and unmanned self-service”, and greatly gives play to the “platform” attribute of the teahouse. The representative brands include 6 tea sharing teahouses, and shared intelligent spaces of the houses.
high end private teahouse: to be young and refined
Yinxi teahouse, which is popular in social media, is a representative brand of high-end private teahouse. Through the refinement and high-end image of the store, the rate of customers arriving at the store was improved, and the current situation of highly relying on the box “turnover rate” was alleviated.
Yinxi teahouse, founded in Shanghai in 2015, absorbs the Shanghai style tea culture of “embracing all rivers in the sea and embracing all”, with the decoration style of “100 stores and 100 scenes”, and creates a sense of tea drinking ceremony by taking advantage of a specific space. The theme elements of the store design include the moon, mountain path, waterfall, Kuteng, cave, old Western-style house, railway station platform, etc., presenting a variety of eastern and Western styles such as the Mediterranean, old Shanghai, Japanese style, Roman style, new churches, etc.
Since the operation logic is closer to that of private clubs and hotels, the product lines of high-end private teahouses are mainly spa halls and high-end restaurants. For example, Yinxi teahouse has set up running water stream health spa and exquisite Chaoshan restaurant “three feet tide” in the teahouse for the target customers.
◎ in March this year, “sanchichao”, known as “omakase” in Chaoshan cuisine, opened in the upper floor of Shanghai jinhongqiao International Center of Yinxi teahouse
In addition to meeting the high-end consumption needs of business people, such brands are also trying to move closer to young people, opening younger themed stores, studying new ways of drinking tea, and developing new pure tea products.
Dayi tea court, which opened three flagship stores in Seoul, South Korea with Pu’er tea, opened a “Basketball” themed store in Yongqing square, Guangzhou last year – drinking tea while watching ball games. The display in the store is decorated with “Basketball” elements such as signature jerseys and ball bags. The cool and youthful tea drinking space is a fashionable teahouse during the day and a slightly drunk bar at night; Accordingly, the store launched special Pu’er tea products such as Pu’er ice cream, bubble Pu’er tea and ice drop Pu’er. It has been in the forefront of the public comment list since its operation.
new social teahouse: experience + retail, an important direction of tea space upgrading
The basketball themed Guangzhou yongqingfang store of Dayi tea court, as well as the new brands set up by other teahouses imitating tea’stone tea drinking methods and tea product combinations, all show the popularity of the new social teahouses.
Tea’stone, born in Shenzhen and deeply influenced by Guangdong tea culture, focuses on presenting the ritual sense of the whole tea tasting process from tea, tea sets, tea brewing, tea drinking to tea tasting environment, and makes innovation and upgrading. Known as the “beauty ceiling of Shenzhen teahouse industry”, it has become a popular card punching place.
Selection: we have selected 108 kinds of all kinds of good Chinese tea, just like a “light Museum” in the tea industry; Drinking and tea set: the combination of China and the west, the combination of ice hockey, dense bubbles, salt rims and freshly extracted tea of Western wine culture, and the tea set with the shapes of perfume bottle, moon bottle, champagne, etc., add the taste of “drinking”; The “charcoal fire tea” with one meal for each person every day has a full sense of traditional ceremony and is highly sought after by young people; Space design: a tea bar more than ten meters long, giving consideration to hospitality and tea making, while showing the Millennium tea making culture history of Chinese tea – from tea making in the Han and Tang Dynasties to purple clay pots in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, covered bowls and bubbles to modern tea extraction technology;
operation time: it will be extended to 1:00 a.m. to create a tea themed “zero tea bar” for night life demanders and lovers, and cooperate with the launch of special tea products to calm the mind and help sleep.
The tea cabinet in the store imitates the traditional Chinese medicine “Baizi cabinet” design, which visually presents all the tea products in the store. The facade of Shenzhen China Resources Vientiane Qianhai store adopts tenon mortise beam column structure; The design of the outer swing area of Shenzhen Vientiane Tiandi store draws on the Qin style eaves, and the attendance rate is gratifying.
It is worth mentioning that tea’stone has achieved gratifying results in retailing. The innovative retail revenue of the same type of tea, special tea gifts, original tea utensils and tea life surroundings accounts for 35% of the store’s revenue, and the re purchase contribution of members reaches more than 70%. The subsequent growth momentum is strong.
Another typical representative of the new social teahouse is boiled leaves. The store model is between tea’stone and tea loving. Focusing on the tastes of young people, it initially focused on the original leaf tea, and later adjusted to the parallel of flavor boiled tea, seasoned tea and original leaf tea, with takeout taking up a large proportion.
In order to attract more high-end consumers, Zhuye opened a scene experience store “Zhuye · Biwu drink” in Beijing International Trade mall five years after its establishment, which combines the experience and retail of “tea”.
The
store has a “Tang boiling, song point and Ming Pao experience area”, which restores the tea making process of the Tang, song and Ming Dynasties; In addition to selling tea in the retail area, the tea utensils sold include tea containers designed by Japanese master haraya for boiling leaves, and explore tea, a designer’s selection with both artistry and texture.
Different from the long history that the above brands are keen to display Chinese tea culture, uuuup Cha, a fashion buyer’s shop uuuuup, comes from a cross-border teahouse, showing the diversity of the integration of tea and modern fashion. Uuuup Cha combines tea with strap teapot, and integrates tea into clothing as a fashion item, becoming the most in item at the show.
24-hour shared teahouse: lightweight operation
The sharing economy is so hot that many traditional teahouse brands are moving in the wind, creating a 24-hour sharing teahouse, which has attracted many consumers to try new foods, and even become popular in small counties.
Like the high-end private teahouse, the 24-hour sharing teahouse adopts the box charging mode. The difference is that the store is standardized, the staff system is streamlined, and the management cost is only one third of the former. The consumption mode of “one click appointment and order, whole process self-service” is very friendly to business people who pay attention to time management.
6 tea sharing teahouse, as a typical representative brand, aims at small and medium-sized public business negotiation with 2-6 people, and also provides private space for ordinary consumers to gather friends, play entertainment and drink tea. From February to March this year, 9 new stores were opened. Light operation and outstanding performance.
mall New teahouse layout description
In the past, teahouses with strong business and leisure social attributes often opened in quiet blocks of office buildings and elegant environments. As a supplement to the “third space”, the three types of new teahouses mentioned above frequently appear in shopping centers.
According to the statistics of Yingshang cloud think tank, a total of 83 new teahouse brands have settled in shopping centers with an area of more than 50000 m2 in 24 cities monitored by Yingshang big data, with a total number of about 130 stores. Although it is still in its infancy, it has shown a distinct personality in the layout.
Scope of Statistics: 24 cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, Xi’an, Wuhan, Xiamen, Changsha, Qingdao, Kunming, Hefei, Fuzhou, Zhengzhou, Suzhou, Guiyang, Quanzhou, Nanchang, Nanning and Foshan, with a commercial area of 50000 m2 or more. Statistical time: January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021
prefers the first tier commercial cities with strong tea culture, “each is the king”
From the perspective of city selection, new teahouse brands are keen to enter first tier commercial cities such as Chongqing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing. Among them, Chengdu and Beijing are known as the second of the four “tea gates” in China’s tea circle; Shanghai and Shenzhen are close to the other two “tea gates” – Hangzhou and Chaoshan, which are deeply influenced by tea culture. (the four “tea gates” in China are the abbreviations of the cities with the most popular tea houses, Hangzhou in the East, Chengdu in the west, Chaoshan in the South and Beijing in the North)
The first tier commercial cities with strong tea culture, numerous enterprises and strong consumption are the soil for the active development of new tea houses.
The new teahouse brand stores in Chongqing and Chengdu rank among the top 2 in China. As one of the largest tea producing regions in China, Sichuan and Chongqing began to pay tribute with tea 3000 years ago. At present, the comprehensive output value of tea has exceeded 100 billion yuan. The long-standing custom of drinking tea makes drinking tea a “just need” for Sichuan and Chongqing people to entertain guests. There are more than 10000 teahouses in Chengdu, where “ten steps a teahouse, one hundred steps a teahouse”.
There are many kinds of tea products and different tea drinking customs in China. Tea drinking culture in different places has become a “Jianghu”. Therefore, although the trend is good, the new teahouse chain brand, which is still small in overall scale, favors “Pianan corner”, establishes a high-end awareness of the category, and forms a fixed consumer group.
- Miao Pinji was famous for its Yongchuan sprouts produced in Chongqing. Later, he built a tea garden in Chongqing and continued to cultivate the Chongqing tea market;
- In order to enhance its penetration in the target customer group, Yinxi teahouse has intensively arranged in Shanghai, where there are many pan consulting companies;
- In order to consolidate the middle-class people’s awareness of the brand “Chinese tea, a new tone”, tea’stone has set up community stores, cultural landmark stores, business CBD landmark stores and shopping center landmark stores around the Shenzhen market.
Enter the mid-range / popular mall, and be adjacent to boutique retail or fashion catering brands
The new tea house brand, which pursues youth, is more interested in seeking office and petty bourgeoisie customers in medium-sized and popular malls.
Among them, Longhu Chongqing star mosaic and Beijing COFCO Xiangyun Town introduced the most new teahouse brands. These two projects are community-based shopping centers, which are located in areas where high-end people are relatively concentrated in the city. The attribute of “urban micro vacation” is obvious, and the new teahouses are located in a “favorable place and people”.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to actively entering Chongqing benchmarking projects such as ifs and halo shopping park, Miao Pinji has also joined forces with Chongqing fellow villagers “Longhu” to make rapid layout and become a new teahouse brand with the most stores in the shopping center.
On the other hand, because the category has its own tea culture attribute, the new teahouse emphasizes quality and attaches great importance to the place image and brand relevance. Brands are more willing to choose the first floor of the shopping center, or the location with excellent display surface and leisure atmosphere, and “associate” with boutique retail or fashion catering brands.
Tea’stone is adjacent to middle and high-end brand stores such as marisfrog and Caroline. It creates theme stores with a strong sense of cultural landmarks and customized products, which are connected with shopping centers and brands on the same floor. Tea’stone, which has become a popular online card punching place, still has an endless stream of tea customers at 23 o’clock at night. The highest monthly performance of Shenzhen Mixc Tiandi store can reach 1.5 million yuan.
Miao Pinji, which is positioned as a medium – and high-end business teahouse space, “where Starbucks is open, it follows”, and its popularity among the post-80s and post-90s has increased rapidly.
the new teahouse has a good business circle, but there are many hidden troubles
The new style teahouse has become popular again, which is inseparable from the successful cultivation of tea drinking habits of young customers by new tea drinks.
On the little red book app where young people gather, search “teahouse”, “teahouse” and “tea space”, and the total number of posts is about 290000, 420000 and 530000 respectively. A note entitled “the most complete foundation of tea” received 94000 likes and 90000 collections, and the data is still growing.
At the same time, the tea bag brand tea has been the first in the category of tmall double 11 herbal tea for five consecutive years. By 2021, more than 800million tea bags have been sold.
The post-90s and post-00s who “put Naixue drink on the market” have entered the society. Healthy and healthy original leaf tea has become their new choice, and new teahouse consumption has followed.
Capital will not let go of what is favored by young people. With the capital injection, the new teahouse brand expanded.
The teahouse tuyere, which can be blown vigorously, has revealed hidden worries under the impact of the epidemic this year.
Lvyixiong, the founder of Yinxi teahouse, recently pointed out the loss in the circle of friends. The Shanghai Yuqing Road store of Yinxi teahouse, which was once out of the circle, was suspected to be “listed” for sale for 250million yuan.
The reasons for the scale and business ceiling of the new teahouse are as follows:
at a time of fast consumption pace and high rent, the rent cost that cannot cross the threshold, the customer unit price that is not very prominent, and the turnover rate that is low even at the peak of passenger flow; “Immersive” high-value stores have high requirements for property transformation; The regional attribute of tea culture itself, for example, the traditional teahouse culture is strong in Sichuan, where tea drinking culture is popular.
At present, high-end private teahouses, new social teahouses and 24-hour sharing teahouses have a trend of mutual integration. In the future, new teahouses may “take their essence” and break the shackles of today.
Author: Xu Na; Source: Yingshang cloud think tank (id:sydcxy2014), reprint has been authorized. Reprint authorization and media business cooperation: Amy (wechat: 13701559246);
