The new Tea drink brand stores of Fuzhou Chunlun Famous Tea cover multiple business districts in Fuzhou.

Southeast Network reported on August 8 (Fujian Daily reporter Zhang Hui / text, Shi Chenjing / photo)

Core Tip

Is there tea in milk tea? Where does the tea in milk tea come from? If you believe “nothing a cup of milk tea can't solve,” do you also have these questions?

By looking at the summer menus of leading new-style tea drink brands, we can get a glimpse: ChaBaiDao, which just listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, features its best-selling item “Gentle Jasmine,” based on seven-time scented jasmine tea from Fuzhou. HEYTEA's classic cheese tea uses tea sourced from major tea-producing areas in Yunnan Pu'er, Sichuan Zigong, and Fujian Ningde. NAIXUE's newly launched “Forest Guanyin” series selects high-aroma oolong tea from Fujian…

Saying goodbye to the era of powdered tea, condensed milk, and fruit syrup, original leaf tea, fresh milk, and fresh fruits have become standard ingredients in new-style tea drinks, with the tea base being the soul of the product. The rapid expansion of new-style tea drink stores has brought new growth points to traditional tea industries that were facing overcapacity issues.

Fujian's deep-rooted tea industry and its unparalleled variety of tea types naturally make it a dream location for new-style tea drink brands. In recent years, Fujian's tea industry and new-style tea drinks have achieved deep interaction through a two-way approach, giving rise to a batch of raw material supply bases and supply chain enterprises for new-style tea drinks. While digesting mid-to-low-end production capacities, Fujian's tea industry is actively seeking change, resonating with new-style tea drinks in terms of production methods and product innovation. Fifteen key tea-producing counties in the province provide 160,000 tons of base tea raw materials for national new-style tea drink terminal products every year, accounting for more than half of the total national usage.

Why Fujian?

In the oolong tea category, the Bailachiulan tea originating from Pinghe County was relatively unknown. After appearing in new-style tea drinks, this lesser-known tea variety experienced a turnaround.

HEYTEA was the first to recognize its potential. In 2025, HEYTEA used the unique orchid-scented Bailachiulan as the base for its hit item “Cheese Peach Tea,” naming it “Amber Orchid.” The combination of Amber Orchid tea with white peach flesh and cheese complemented each other perfectly, quickly igniting the market. Following this, brands such as Tea Yan Yue Se, Guming, and ChaBaiDao also introduced Bailachiulan into their flagship products.

What did new-style tea drinks bring to Bailachiulan? The most direct change was in the purchase price at the origin: previously, the Spring Tea purchase price was around 40-50 yuan per kilogram, but it has now risen to over 100 yuan. This had a significant impact on Lin Rencong, an operator in Pinghe County's tea industry.

In 2025, at the age of 29, Lin Rencong leased a thousand-acre tea mountain, initially focusing on traditional tea production and sales. Two years later, his company, Zhangzhou Mingzhi Tea Co., Ltd., became a raw material supplier for the local new-style tea drink brand Chunchifeng and started transforming into a supply chain enterprise for new-style tea drinks.

At that time, the new-style tea drink market was undergoing a raw material revolution.

“New-style tea drinks originated from Taiwanese bubble milk tea,” said Lin Rencong. The earliest milk teas might not contain any milk or tea. The milky flavor came from vegetable oil-based non-dairy creamer, commonly known as creamer powder; the tea flavor came from artificial flavorings with a tea-like aroma, and later, tea powder extracted and concentrated from tea leaves emerged. Daming Foods (Zhangzhou) Co., Ltd. is China's largest tea extract processing enterprise and a major supplier of raw materials for well-known tea drink brands.

In the highly competitive new-style tea drink industry, where capital, packaging, store scale, and marketing are all in a state of intense competition, the focus shifted to raw materials. Original leaf tea, fresh milk, and fresh fruits gradually became industry standards, attempting to break the stereotype that milk tea is unhealthy.

This trend is evident from changes in the slogans of major brands.

Last year, ChaBaiDao, which went from Chengdu, Sichuan to the nation, released an upgraded brand IP, positioning itself with the new slogan “Good tea at the core, creating freshness.” At the launch event, ChaBaiDao introduced several new tea bases, including Fujian teas like seven-time scented jasmine and Tan Yang Gongfu.

Fujian, which plays a crucial role in China's tea industry landscape, became a battleground.

“Almost every county in Fujian produces tea, and the golden tea-growing belt spans the entire province,” said Wang Dinghe, Director of the Plant Industry Management Department of the Fujian Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. As early as 2025, Fujian became the first province in China to exceed 100 billion yuan in annual tea industry output value. Last year, the total full-industry-chain output value of Fujian's tea industry exceeded 150 billion yuan, maintaining the top spot in the country for six consecutive years. More importantly, Fujian is a famous multi-tea type production area. It is the birthplace of oolong tea, black tea, White Tea, and jasmine-scented tea among the six major tea types, and famous teas such as Wuyi rock tea, Fuding white tea, Fuzhou jasmine-scented tea, Anxi Tieguanyin, and Tan Yang Gongfu enjoy international renown.

For new-style tea drink companies, Fujian is the ideal selection library. Nowadays, you can almost always find Fujian tea prominently featured in the ingredient lists of all new-style tea drink brands.

“Last year, we sold over one billion cups of beverages, driving upstream supply chain enterprises to procure over ten thousand tons of raw tea annually,” said a representative of ChaBaiDao. The company purchases over 2,000 tons of Meizhan black tea, oolong tea, and steamed green tea from Fujian each year.

The explosive demand for tea raw materials from new-style tea drinks has activated the somewhat stagnant tea market in recent years.

The 2025 Annual Report on China's Tea Production and Sales by the Chinese Tea Circulation Association shows: last year, the total output of dry tea in China was 3.3395 million tons, with an internal sales volume of 2.404 million tons, an export volume of 367,500 tons, and an import volume of 39,000 tons. High inventory levels and overcapacity in the national tea market are undeniable facts.

The burgeoning new-style tea drink industry provides an important outlet for reducing inventories and digesting mid-to-low-end production capacities. The famous tea town of Anxi County, with 600,000 mu of tea gardens, has in recent years transcended the single category of Tieguanyin, leveraging its resource, processing capability, and channel advantages to transform into a hub for “the trade of hundreds of teas.” Last year, Anxi County supplied over 60,000 tons of base tea for new-style tea drinks, accounting for over 20% of the national market share.

Rolling Upstream

In this context, Lin Rencong ventured into the field of base tea for new-style tea drinks, developing local specialty tea resources to create unique tea bases. This was the strategy he determined from the beginning.

“In the traditional perception, new-style tea drinks often use low-end tea as the base, mainly common black tea, oolong tea, green tea, and Flower tea,” said Lin Rencong. However, with the intensifying competition within the industry, the situation is changing. From popular hits in recent years, we can see this trend.

NAIXUE's “Báqì Duck Shit Fragrant Treasure Tea” made the Chaozhou Dancong Duck Shit Fragrant a hit; Shanghai Auntie's “No.8 Old White Cooked White Gold” series gave white tea a place in tea bases; HEYTEA's “Silver Coin” series used Pu'er tea, a rare delicacy; ChaBaiDao's classic “Cinnamon Rock Tea Base” introduced Wuyi rock tea to more consumers… Major new-style tea drink brands have chosen to bet on niche