According to Sina Finance News on December 5, today Nai Xue's Tea and 36 Krypton Research Institute jointly released the “2019 White Paper on New Tea Consumption” (hereinafter referred to as the “White Paper”). This is the first time that the new tea industry has released big industry data to the outside world.

Beginning in the 90s of the last century, the tea industry has gone through three stages: the powder era, the street era, and the new tea drinking era. In particular, since 2015, with the emergence of brands such as Nai Xue's Tea and Hi Cha, the tea market has ushered in a new cycle of rapid growth, and the existing tea chain industry in China has gradually entered the “new style tea” period.

According to the “White Paper” data, according to the estimate of “China's tea market size = new-style tea store sales plus traditional tea sales”, the total size of the Chinese tea market will exceed 400 billion yuan in 2019. According to the estimate of “China's coffee market size = coffee store sales and coffee bean sales”, the total size of the Chinese coffee market will be close to 200 billion yuan in 2019. This means that in 2019, the Chinese tea market will be more than twice the size of the coffee market.

As the market size expands rapidly, competition in the beverage industry will also become more intense. Li Xiaoxiao, director of the 36 Krypton Research Institute, explained that in the future, the boundaries of the main categories of new tea companies will gradually weaken, and more emphasis will be placed on scenario-based operations. Testing the waters of new retail may become the general trend of competition in the second half.

In fact, leading players in the beverage industry are currently forming multi-scenario experience stores for tea, coffee, alcohol, food, culture, creativity, environmental protection, etc. around IP, providing diverse functions integrating catering, retail, entertainment, and cultural and creative peripherals, such as Starbucks flagship store, Nai Xue's “Nai Xue Dream Factory”, and Hi Cha's “Hi Cha Lab Flagship Store”.

Furthermore, the “White Paper” shows that there is a clear trend of channel diversification. New-style tea brands pay more attention to cultivating users' online transaction habits, and no longer use in-store consumption as the only consumption scenario.

According to data from Meituan, at present, the operation of tea stores in first-tier cities tends to be mature and saturated. The growth in the number of tea shops in first-tier cities within two years is far less than in other lower-tier cities. New-style tea shops in third-tier cities and below have increased by 138% compared to two years ago, while in second-tier cities, new first-tier cities, and northbound cities, the increases were 120%, 96%, and 59%, respectively.

Meanwhile, the volume of pre-orders and takeaways is rising year by year. According to Alipay data, the number of takeout orders in the tea industry is increasing at a rate of 50% every year, and leading tea brands already account for more than 50% of online order sales volume (mobile orders and takeout). Li Xiaoxiao, director of the 36 Krypton Research Institute, said that according to Meituan data, tea and beverage orders in the first half of 2019 increased 15% year-on-year compared to the second half of 2018, and are expected to exceed 250 million orders in 2019.

In the upstream supply chain of the tea industry, most tea companies are supported by tea farmers, and there are no standards for tea production. However, Luo Jun, founder and CEO of China Tea Lab, said that under the impetus of new-style tea, the upstream supply chain is being integrated, including the country's core technology and core equipment, which is also constantly deepening into it.

Peng Xin, founder of Nai Xue's Tea, also said that as a leading brand, he hopes to promote two “standards”: one is to promote the establishment of product standards in the tea supply chain, and the second is to promote standards for industry training. “The first stage is to stabilize product production through product operation training; the second stage hopes to promote industry cultural experience and tea culture training to truly cultivate industry partners who love tea culture, just as Starbucks employees love coffee culture.” (Sina Finance Xu Yuanlei)