appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

liveArticle

appConfig

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sectionsV2

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

json

Wendy Wu

Beijing couple LIU YONGFEI and BI XIAONING, who are both in their 30s, launched the online company, Ju Zhan Tea House, selling tea on China’s social media platform, WeChat, earlier this year.
They tell WENDY WU about the tea market in China amid the rising popularity of coffee
What inspired you to set up an online shop selling tea?
Liu: Drinking tea is something I must do every day. My wife and I were classmates at a senior school in our hometown of Weihai, in Shandong province.
I do like to share good tea I have found with my friends. It was this that prompted us to start our business selling tea online
Liu Yongfei
I have a real passion for tea: I have enjoyed drinking good tea and learning more about China’s tea-drinking culture for more than one decade.
The Chinese Confucian philosopher Mencius said: “It is more joyful to share the joy than to keep it to oneself”, and I do like to share good tea I have found with my friends. It was this that prompted us to start our business selling tea online.
Initially my wife didn’t share my interest in tea, but later she was affected by my passion and I was very happy when she started to show an interest in the differences between the flavours of various teas.
Although China is the world’s biggest tea producer, it is not among the top tea consumers. The annual average consumption of tea in China is 566 grams per person with the market valued at about 300 billion yuan (HK$336 billion).
Today green tea is China’s most popular type of tea, but there is a growing popularity for a black tea variety called puer, which is grown in Yunnan province.

How did you get started?
Liu: We settled in Beijing after we graduated from university. I studied Russian and my freelance job as a Russian translator for more than 10 years offers me the flexibility to travel around to taste and find good tea.
I persuaded my wife, who studied economics, to quit her full-time job in public relations to work on a freelance basis and join me in running our tea business.
Bi: Every time we invite friends to our home, my husband will invite them to drink various types of tea after dinner – green, black, dark, yellow and white tea. He can talk happily and passionately about tea for hours,and likes to send tea as gifts to our friends.
He drinks a lot of tea each day, especially during our visits to famous tea farms in Yunnan province. Once he tried eight types of tea, each time drinking 10 grams of leaves, on a single day, but that didn’t cause him any sleeping difficulties at all.
China’s Tea Horse Road, the Silk Road’s lesser-known sibling
How have your experiences helped your business?
Liu: First-hand experience is the lifeblood of our business. We focus on selling good tea, but ours is not as expensive as the most luxurious brands.
I tasted a really good tea at one tea shop and then spent three months tracking down the exact place it came from to promote it to my clients
Liu Yongfei
We have hundreds of clients – mostly middle-class people born in the 1970s and ’80s who are interested in appreciating the beauty of various kinds of tea, and are also willing to pay for good tea. We even have friends in Israel who buy our tea.
We often travel to China’s famous tea farms to select good-quality tea.
Puer tea is the main focus of our business so I went to Yunnan for the second time this year, visiting various tea shops and villages and talking to experienced tea makers and craftsman.
I accidentally tasted a really good tea at one tea shop and then spent three months tracking down the exact place that it came from to promote it to my clients.

Is expensive tea always the best?
Liu: One of the great fascinations about puer tea is that the longer it is preserved, the better it tastes. A 3 gram bar of puer tea preserved for more than 60 years was once sold at auction for more than 10,000 yuan.
Huge demand for the tea since 2014 has led to a surge in puer tea prices. But it is not always true that the more expensive the tea, the better the quality.
There are many places that produce good tea, which people from outside the area have yet to discover. There is a Yunnan village called Bingdao, which produces one of the most famous of the three types of puer tea. But I found a dozen neighbouring villages, which also produce very good tea, but they are not well known in the industry.
They would have to copy the Bingdao brand name to boost their prices and sales. These are the kinds of places I’m trying to discover for my niche market – producing very good, but not expensive tea.
Yunnan, Chinese province famous for tea, now looks to coffee
Is there a conflict between tea and coffee cultures in China?
Bi: Interest in drinking tea and coffee does not have to mean people can only enjoy one or the other. My uncle, who is more than 70 years old, has drunk tea for decades, and started to drink black coffee only a couple of years ago. But he loves drinking them both.
In the city of Puer there is a coffee farm which supplies coffee beans to Starbucks. And there are some tea producers attempting to make coffee-flavoured tea.
You can see that there is no regional or age restriction on drinking coffee or tea. In China we are learning from the coffee business.
Liu: I don’t think there is any conflict between tea and coffee drinking – just as people like eating Western-style steak and Chinese-style braised pork.
Tea culture is part of traditional Chinese culture, but many Chinese people now accept that Western culture is now part of the mainstream culture.
But there are also quite a lot of Chinese people – including the generation born in the 1990s – who are big fans of drinking tea. Some of my clients are fans of drinking both tea and coffee.

What are your business aims?
Liu: We want our business to expand and, of course, make greater profits if we can. But money is not our only goal.
We want to introduce good tea to people, and also focus on being an honest business to counter the unfortunate problems of fake and poor-quality teas that are also sold by other companies.
We hope more and more people are able to understand and appreciate the benefits of tea and know how to drink tea. Most of our customers are our friends, but it is important for us that build up a good reputation and gradually expand our influence.
Chinese tea-based beauty brand Cha Ling looks to revitalise human skin and Yunnan forests
A lot of scientific research supports the belief that drinking tea is good for us, for example, the health benefits from the antioxidants found in tea. It is regarded as one of the reasons for longevity, researchers have found.
Some kinds of tea are also believed to help people to keep fit. But there is also a lot of false and negative information in circulation about tea, which will take a lot of time and energy to put right.
The coffee culture is very mature and sophisticated in the West, and there a great deal of in-depth research and many publications on its history and craftsmanship, from which we can learn and promote our tea culture.
How do you help clients who have little knowledge about tea?
Liu: If people like to drink tea, it is better for them to learn about tea, rather than blindly chasing after brand names or teas that have high prices.
Basic common sense is necessary. I ask detailed questions about what flavour of tea or level of bitterness my clients enjoy most and then make a recommendation to them.
I think I am still gaining experience in the tea business. Only those who are knowledgeable about the subject – but also understand the level of craftsmanship involved in the tea-making process – are really tea masters.
Each step in the process of selling tea has its own difficulties. It is important to notice the interaction between buyers and sellers at a Chinese tea market.
Good and honest sellers can help educate buyers to appreciate the beauty of tea and tea drinking. But unscrupulous sellers will lead to blind buyers into chasing trends and brands, but they will not really understand anything about the tea.
They don’t pay enough attention so they can distinguish what is true and what is false, or lack sufficient knowledge to judge right from wrong.
Often impulse buying will encourage dealers to sell low-quality tea. It is easy to find fake or poor-quality tea on the market, with products containing too many food additives.


Young Chinese couple keen to make puer the nation’s cup of tea

Liu Yongfei (left) and his wife Bi Xiaoning, who run the online company, Ju Zhan Tea House, selling tea on China’s social media platform, WeChat. Photo: Handout

This handout image shows a promotional image for Pu'er tea leaves in Yunnan province, China. 27SEP15 [26FEBRUARY2016 LUSURY SECOND LIFE]

This handout image shows harvest Pu'er tea leaves in Yunnan province, China. 01OCT15 [26FEBRUARY2016 LUSURY SECOND LIFE]

(120428) -- PUER, April 28, 2012 (Xinhua) -- Farmers pick tea leaves in a tea garden in Wuyi Village of Puer City, southwest China's Yunnan Province, April 26, 2012. Tea planters in Puer started picking spring tea leaves recently. Tea planting has been a main support of local economy, where is famed for its Puer tea. (Xinhua/Lin Yiguang) (zgp)

News

China

People & Culture

Liu Yongfei and Bi Xiaoning launched online company, Ju Zhan Tea House, selling tea in China, the world’s biggest tea producer, on WeChat this year


Young Chinese couple keen to make puer the nation’s cup of tea

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Liu Yongfei and Bi Xiaoning launched online company, Ju Zhan Tea House, selling tea in China, the world’s biggest tea producer, on WeChat this year

Liu Yongfei and Bi Xiaoning launched online company, Ju Zhan Tea House, selling tea in China, the world’s biggest tea producer, on WeChat this year