This article is jointly produced by 36Kr X DT Finance and Economics.
Let me ask you a little question. Will you buy more milk tea or fruit tea when you go to a new tea shop this year?
I don’t know. Have you noticed? This summer, when you click on the applet of any tea brand, the new products in the most conspicuous position are no longer all kinds of milk lids, but all kinds of brightly colored fruit teas.
There are so many kinds of fruit teas of various brands that people who are afraid of choosing can’t decide after staring for more than ten minutes. After all, each one looks so fresh and delicious.
If milk tea is the fire of young people’s desire, then fruit tea is the light of their life. No one wants to refuse a cup of refreshing fruit tea under the scorching sun.
For many young people, the quality of fruit tea has become the only criterion to measure whether a new tea shop is worth visiting again.
Fruit tea, the most intense battlefield of new tea.
Fruit tea has long been a battleground for all tea shops. In a sense, whether there is a fruit tea that is delicious enough to make a circle or cause great discussion and controversy is the core fighting power to determine whether a new tea can survive.
This is not what we said casually, but the choice of consumers. According to the data published by Xicha itself, in 2020, four of the TOP 5 products that Xicha is most popular with consumers are fruit-based teas.
(Source: 2020 Tea Data Report)
In front of the "Juejuezi" that everyone already hates, it is no longer a cup of cheese milk cover that everyone had a few years ago, but a variety of fruit teas.
From the old-fashioned "Zhizhi Berry", "Yang Zhi Mannan" and "Lots of Mangoes" to the latest "Old Salt Yellow Peel", "Thai Lemon" and "Yougan Tea", although the materials used in these drinks are different, they all reveal the same commercial code-if you want to make online celebrity drinks these days, you must add fruit to them.
The major brands in online celebrity also supported our view with practical actions.
To see how important fruit tea is to new tea shops, it is enough to see their proportion in the menu. In this survey, we selected three representative brands of new-style tea: Naixue の tea, which was the first to go on the market, Lele tea, which was very popular in Shanghai, and the first person to like new-style tea.
The results show that fruit tea accounts for more than half of all tea shops’ products, while Lele tea has expanded its own fruit tea to more than 80%. Compared with tea shops, fruit tea shops are more in line with Lele tea’s current positioning.
Naixue の tea, which used to fight rivers and lakes by domineering fruit series in the early years, is still on the fruit tea side now. At present, more than 60% of Naixue’s menu is fruit tea. This summer, Naixue still enjoyed the sweetness from fruit. It was in Naixue’s menu that the orange first appeared in front of the public. Since then, it has become a big hit, and for a long time, Naixue has also exploded the circle of friends and the little red book of young people.
Even Xi tea, which started as milk tea with milk cover, has quietly changed the menu, so that the proportion of fruit tea is gradually higher than that of the main milk tea. Now Xi tea and fruit tea have exceeded half.
Fruit tea, especially the niche and delicious new fruit tea, has become the real wealth password of new tea.
Guocha The Secret Behind
Where there are people, there is traffic, and where there is traffic, you can draft. In order to explore the secret of wealth behind fruit tea, we counted the menus of hi tea, Lele tea and Naixue tea, and decided to have a cup of fruit 101 with summer milk tea first.
First of all, we must recognize the top status of strawberries, mangoes, grapes and peaches. These four kinds of fruits are the flow F4 of tea shops, and all three head tea shops have products made from these three drinks, and they occupy the top positions in the sales list all the year round.
The reason why these four fruits can dominate the screen is also very simple. First of all, they are all delicious (this is nonsense); Secondly, they all have very mature production technology and a long history of variety improvement.
Take mango as an example. We all know that mango is an important raw material for making poplar nectar and various mango products. In autumn, winter and spring, tea shops will choose to import mangoes from Southeast Asia to solve the supply problem of mangoes, and from May, Guangxi Baise mango, which is sweeter and more fragrant, will become the first choice for fruit tea shops. This is why mango products from May to July are more delicious.
After talking about the products that all three companies have, let’s take a look at who has the most exclusive fruits as of July this year.
Facts have proved that Lele tea, which accounts for 80% of fruit tea products, is very dead in this respect, and there are five exclusive fruit teas. It not only brought Myrica rubra, a seasonal fruit, to everyone at the earliest, but also mulberry, a fruit that is not often produced in large quantities.
Xicha also handed in a very good report card. After making the niche fruit of wampee first, it also mixed carambola, passion fruit and orange together.
In July, Naixue was the one with the least exclusive fruit and the least variety of fruit. But this is not a big problem. After all, Naixue is the first brand to make orange tea this year. This first bite of crab has already made Naixue feel a sense of existence on the social networking platform.
Seeing this, you may find two fruits that are unfamiliar in the past, but have been screened on major social platforms this summer-orange and yellow peel.
Huangpi is mostly born in Fujian, Hainan and Guangdong, while Youkan is mostly born in Chaoshan, Guangdong. These two kinds of fruits are also extremely difficult to transport, especially the yellow skin, which will rot if you knock it a little. Therefore, for many people living in the north, they may have never heard of these two fruits.
These two kinds of fruits reflect two new trends of making fruit tea in the future: first, the taste should be novel, and it should not collide with the traditional popular berries, mangoes, peaches and Portuguese; Second, to play the health card, young people nowadays really think that drinking fruit tea is good for health and try their best to justify their drinking fruit tea.
The niche of orange and yellow peel can certainly arouse consumers’ curiosity, but the effect of "clearing intestines, relaxing bowels and removing fire" in Amway advertisements of orange tea and yellow peel tea really appeals to young people. Young consumers pay more and more attention to health, and they are more and more prone to constipation and obesity. Selling points such as "scraping oil" and "removing fire" of Huangpi tea and Yougan tea can be described as right in the heart.
Special taste is also a necessary condition for popularity. I don’t believe that I was the only one who was attracted by the copy of "3 seconds slightly astringent, 5 seconds sweet" in the little red book, ordered the first cup of orange drink, and then entered the "orange teaching", with three cups of orange tea a week.
In addition to fruit, the bottom of tea also hides the secret that fruit tea can become popular.
After picking up the menus of three tea brands, we found that Jasmine green tea can join various fruit groups CP and become a mysterious force to completely transform all fruits.
Compared with the second-ranked oolong tea, Jasmine Green Tea or Jasmine Green Yan has unique advantages. First of all, it has its own jasmine fragrance, the tea soup is clear and the entrance is very refreshing. Second, although it is much inferior to the tea like Longjing, jasmine green tea is less astringent and can highlight the taste of the fruit itself. At the same time, the slightly bitter tea taste can make the fruit tea less sweet and greasy.
As for the mellow black tea, it seems that it can only be bound with lemon to make a good CP.
Why do brands explore all kinds of new fruit tea crazy involution?
Seeing this, you may have discovered a secret of fruit tea: the tea base of popular fruit tea is basically the same (at most, the different grades of tea affect the quality), and only the fruit has been updated.
The internal reason why milk teas are frantically looking for new fruits is simple-the tea industry is entering an accelerated involution stage.
No way, the problem of homogenization of the menu of new tea brands is too serious now.
The main target users of new tea are the most critical and fickle new generation consumers. If brands want to retain consumers, they must differentiate their products and create new memory points.
At this time, it is the most practical solution to go to the whole country and even the whole world to find fresh fruits that have not been discovered-compared with tea and milk lids, there are too many tricks that fruit can play with tea.
This involves the core competitiveness of fruit tea: sweet and sour ratio.
The ratio of sweetness to acidity of fruit tea refers to the ratio of sweetness of fruit and syrup to total acidity of fruit. This ratio is not simply as high as possible, but to find a balance between sugar content and acidity. Using a certain acid to stimulate sweetness is the best state-different fruits will be stimulated with different surprises.
Let’s look at the two most popular flavors this year-orange and yellow peel. One of the reasons why they are hot is that they are completely different from the sweet-sour ratio of fruit tea commonly seen in the market, and they add a new dimension-astringency, so they can only be paired with tea with light bitterness, and they have to add another sugar.
Another advantage of fruit tea lies in its color. Everyone may be stunned when they see the color. Shouldn’t drinks mainly look at the taste?
This is actually a misunderstanding. Part of the reason why fruit tea is attractive is that its color is very beautiful and changeable compared with drinks such as water, cola and tea.
According to "Interesting Color Psychology" written by Mr. Jin Shengrong, the color of food and dining environment can obviously affect our appetite.
Red, including pink, which belongs to the red color system, can promote blood circulation and seduce people’s appetite best. Strawberry, watermelon, grapefruit and peach, these common raw materials of fruit tea, are the best in the red food army.
Yellow and orange are also colors that can stimulate appetite. Both colors can make people unconsciously associate with sweet and soft taste, especially orange food, which can make people’s mood instantly bright. Oranges and the yellow skin of this year’s fire are representative foods of this color system.
White can give people a pure and fresh feeling, and even make people ignore calories. Coconut products are also particularly noticeable this year because of this feature.
If the taste and face value reach a certain level, there is hope to become a "online celebrity".
For head tea brands such as Hi Tea, Lele Tea and Naixue Tea, the greatest value that "online celebrity" products can create is the brand effect.
Tea is in the fast-moving industry, which is an extremely fast-changing industry. Generally, the life span of online celebrity brands is only 6-12 months, and the aging of online celebrity products is even shorter. Products popular in summer may be neglected in autumn.
Therefore, one of the basic ways to play in the new tea drinking session is to link the product with the brand, and promote the brand effect with the help of the popular product IP, and finally the winner will take it all. Big brands like Xicha and Naixue will only open more and more stores, radiating from first-tier cities to more cities.
Only by establishing the brand can they buy better fruits and sell them at higher prices.
We believe that the future of freshly made tea will inevitably continue to roll in, but there are not many fresh fruits left for merchants.
Author | Zhang Beidi, Amy
Data | Dong Daoli
Compilation | Tang Yeqin
Design | Zheng Shuya, Zhang Can
Krypton column planning | Han Liu