The development of industries is often influenced and constrained by multiple factors. At the heart of this, using brand breakthroughs to drive the coordinated operation of all resources across the entire industry chain is a critical driver for the Tea industry's enduring success amidst the tides of time.

To further analyze the characteristics of tea brands and find a clear direction for industry development, “Talking Tea” has joined forces with tea brand marketing expert, specially appointed professor of the China Tea Business School, industry advisor of Sales & Marketing, author of The Secrets of Tea Brands, and founder of Qisi Brand, Tian Youlong, to launch a series of columns titled “Brand Methodology – Interpretation of Methods for Building and Upgrading Tea Brands,” dissecting ways and means for upgrading tea brands.

Outsiders can't play the tea game!

A shared understanding in the tea circle: tea is a very special industry with many intricacies, requiring insiders with deep knowledge; outsiders simply can't handle it!

Three major barriers make entry into the tea industry very high.

Tea professionals are highly confident and vocal, and they have good reasons. As a traditional industry, relatively closed off, the tea industry is characterized by three major barriers: tea fields, technology, and culture, which create a high threshold for entry.

Earning a living from the tea fields, monopolizing core resources

The tea industry relies on natural endowments, meaning that the unique properties of a region nurture its tea, shaped by natural environment, topography, soil quality, and climatic conditions. For example, the Danxia landform of Mount Wuyi, with its purple and red sandstone, contributes to the “rocky and floral fragrance” of rock tea. In this unique agricultural economic model, prime tea field resources are mostly monopolized by local residents (who are usually also tea experts), creating a hard-to-replicate competitive edge that outsiders cannot match.

△ Scenic view of Songxi tea plantation (Photographed by “Talking Tea”)

Mastering technology for leading product quality

While access to tea fields is a given for those close to the mountains, leaving little room for others, the advantage of tea fields needs to be unlocked through skill. Skill is another significant hurdle. Tea production processes are complex, with numerous schools of thought, and there is a tradition of “making tea based on the tea itself,” involving a personal touch. Tea-making skills are typically stored in the minds of experts and passed down through generations, primarily from father to son or master to apprentice, with strict protection measures in place. It is difficult, costly, and time-consuming for outsiders to learn these skills, making it challenging to produce high-quality tea, resulting in weaker products. It is extremely difficult for outsiders to outperform insiders.

Cultural leadership, seizing the commanding heights of the industry

The tea industry is not just about agriculture but also about culture. With a history as long as that of China itself, Tea culture has accumulated over thousands of years and is profound and extensive, encompassing material culture, institutional culture, behavioral culture, and mental culture. Deciphering tea culture requires significant effort, even for seasoned insiders; outsiders can only grasp the surface, unable to fully comprehend tea culture in a short period. Without cracking the cultural code, one cannot command industry discourse, seize the commanding heights of the industry, and thus, outsiders can only play catch-up.

For outsiders to do tea, it's really not that difficult.

Is doing tea truly that hard? Is it impossible for outsiders to handle the tea business? By logically analyzing whether this judgment holds up, evaluating its sustainability from an industrial strategy perspective, and validating it with facts, the answer becomes clear.

It doesn't logically hold that outsiders can't play the tea game.

The notion that outsiders can't play the tea game does not withstand logical scrutiny. Tea is not a high-tech industry nor capital-intensive, and its entry barrier is not particularly high; the tea industry follows general market rules without any unique characteristics. While the tea industry was once a closed system where control over tea fields and techniques could establish a competitive edge, today, commercial activities allow resources to flow freely, and the internet breaks down closed systems, making industry resources shared and information transparent, leaving insiders with few advantages. The idea that outsiders can't play the tea game does not logically hold and should not be taken seriously.

△ Big Data Cloud Platform for Tea (Image Source: Aerospace Smart Agriculture Co., Ltd.)

The right moment for outsiders to enter the tea industry hasn't arrived yet.

In recent years, outsiders entering the tea industry have indeed experienced more failures than successes, and there are reasons for this. In the past few decades, China has rapidly transitioned from an agrarian society to an industrial one, facing many pressing national and livelihood concerns, with numerous market opportunities. As a native industry, tea is not a necessity, but rather something dispensable, unable to secure a spot on the fast track of priority development, and thus, not among the opportunities. Players with real strength have focused their attention on larger and more important industries, paying little heed to the tea industry (with a few exceptions who entered without genuine intentions to do tea), and certainly not entering in large numbers. The claim that outsiders can't handle the tea business does not sustainably hold, and such discussions can be put to rest.

Outsiders creating phenomenal tea brands

Outsiders have many advantages when it comes to doing tea, such as capital, business philosophy, teams, and brand management capabilities. When genuinely committed to the tea industry, they can inadvertently create phenomenal tea brands. For instance, Zhuyeqing, the king of Chinese green teas, was founded by Mr. Tang, who did not come from a tea-making family; Dayi, the pioneer of the Pu'er tea financial model, is led by Mr. Wu, who transitioned from the financial sector; and the most amusing example is Xiao Guan Cha, which has sparked much criticism within the tea circle but has also been widely imitated, and its principal, Mr. Du, is not a traditional tea person. Facts speak louder than words, and the statement that outsiders can't handle the tea business should be retracted.

A once-in-a-millennium opportunity: outsiders turning a new page in the tea industry

In the new era, tea takes on new missions of strengthening agriculture, beautifying rural areas, and enriching farmers, becoming a vanguard in rural revitalization. National strategies are propelling its accelerated development, with a series of favorable conditions following suit, ushering in unprecedented development opportunities for tea, transforming it from a niche industry into a popular one. Outsiders with substantial resources are poised to enter the industry with systematic advantages in capital, technology, teams, and management, turning a new page in the development of the tea industry!

△ Scene of tea picking in Fuzhou (Photographed by “Talking Tea”)

Rebuilding the industry's mission

In the new era, tea must embody the “three mountains” theory and lead inclusive development. New tea companies must advocate for equal emphasis on economic and social values, establishing a correct mission — to make human life better. This new mission requires open and shared pursuit of sustainable development by outsiders equipped with capital, business philosophies, and management models to coordinate the relationships between employees, customers, partners, investors, nature, and society. Achieving harmony between the company and its employees, partners, nature, society, and the future is the survival wisdom that future tea companies need most.

Reconstructing core competitiveness

There are many tea-producing regions, complex technologies, and diverse varieties, perfectly matching the individual economy of the information age. This is the essence of flexible production, allowing for leapfrog development.

Flexible production is easier said than done: it requires money, technology, and talent. Only outsiders with ideas, technology, capital, and talent can practice flexible production, enabling tea to skip over incomplete industrialization and use information-oriented thinking and production models to reconstruct core competitiveness. Only then can Chinese Tea return to the pinnacle of the world.

Reconfiguring business relationships

The current battle in the tea industry is between companies; in the future, it will be between industry chains. The tea industry chain, stretching from tea fields to tea cups,