On October 17, the General Secretary joined the discussion of the Guangxi delegation to the 20th National Congress of the CPC. Photo by Xie Huanchi, Xinhua News Agency
Liubao tea enjoys the General Secretary’s attention
The moment was fixed at mid-morning on October 17, the second day of the 20th National Congress of the CPC, when the General Secretary joined the Guangxi delegation’s discussion. Zhu Xuelan, a member of the delegation—Party branch secretary and village committee director of Shanping Village, Liubao Town, Cangwu County, Wuzhou City—reported as one of five speakers from the Guangxi delegation on how she had led villagers out of poverty and toward prosperity by building on the local specialty tea industry. During the report, the General Secretary asked three questions in a row: Can Liubao tea be steeped as well as boiled? Is longer aging always better? Does Shanping Village have its own tea brand? And he urged that Liubao tea be built bigger and stronger.
After the news was reported by the major central media, entrepreneurs across the country engaged in Liubao tea production and trading were thrilled and deeply moved. Yan Yihua, a dealer who was among the earlier Liubao tea traders in Beijing and represents two leading Liubao tea brands, told the China Cooperation Times · Tea Weekly reporter: “That evening, when I saw everyone in my WeChat Moments reposting the General Secretary’s remarks on Liubao tea, my first thought was that the General Secretary actually knows Liubao tea, and my second was that Liubao tea is about to become popular among ordinary consumers. For three days straight, I reposted this news once every day.”
Wei Keying, secretary-general of the Guangxi Tea Industry Association in faraway Nanning, told the reporter that Guangxi’s remote location and underdeveloped economy meant that for many years the region had produced no tea brands of notable fame. In recent years, Wuzhou Liubao tea successfully registered a geographical indication certification trademark, and with the dual engines of the “Wuzhou Liubao Tea” regional public brand and the “Tea Boat Ancient Road” culture brand, a market scene of booming production and sales with rising volumes and prices emerged. In 2020, an application was filed for Guangxi Liubao tea geographical indication registration. The General Secretary’s remarks on Liubao tea to the Guangxi delegation have greatly encouraged and honored all tea people in the Liubao tea industry. This is of major significance for governments at all levels in Guangxi to give greater weight to the tea industry and raise Liubao tea’s national profile.
China Cooperation Times · Tea Weekly all-media reporters noted that as early as 2017, when the General Secretary visited Guangxi for research, he heard the story of the “Tea Boat Ancient Road” and tasted Wuzhou Liubao tea; subsequently, in his congratulatory letter to the first China International Tea Expo, he likened the “Tea Boat Ancient Road” to the “Tea Horse Road” as an important component of the “Belt and Road.” That is why the General Secretary knows Liubao tea so well.
Three years of steep rises
Producers and traders have reaped rich rewards
As early as 2018, China Cooperation Times · Tea Weekly all media published “2018: Liubao Tea Will Become a Hit in the Chinese Tea Market!” and in 2019 “Liubao Tea, Rising Steeply for Three Years Running—Where Will It Go?”, forecasting the Liubao tea market. Looking back now, the predictions have become fact.
For most tea people on the mainland, at least before 2015, Liubao tea was an unfamiliar concept—many, seeing the name, did not know how to pronounce it. The reason: almost all Liubao tea produced earlier was exported to Southeast Asia, with basically none sold on the mainland. As the dark tea market rose, Liubao tea, a member of the dark tea family, gradually became known to tea lovers. Zhang Xiaofang, a veteran who has sold Liubao tea in Maliandao, Beijing, for ten years, sums up the market’s development in three stages: dormancy before 2015, emergence from 2015 to 2018, and the booming phase from 2019 to now.
As one of the first dealers to promote Liubao tea in the north, Zhang Xiaofang recalls a customer’s refund request in 2013: drawn by the attractive bamboo-basket packaging, a customer bought some, then called the next day to return it, saying the tea tasted “earthy” and the flavor was unacceptable. Back then, selling Liubao tea in the north was difficult. In recent years, with improved processing and dealers’ promotion, northern consumers have gradually come to accept it. From 2015 to 2018, the price of new Liubao tea rose 10%-20% a year, and aged teas of three years or more rose even faster. From 2019, Liubao tea prices changed by the day; dealers checked prices with peers daily to see what price to set. By 2021, the booming Liubao tea market had dealers earning handsomely.
In 2022, affected by the pandemic and the economic downturn, Liubao tea price growth narrowed. An entrepreneur with rich Liubao tea trading experience could hardly contain his joy: through three pandemic years, the most at-ease people in the tea world have been the Liubao tea traders. One dealer who declined to be named said that from 2019 to 2021 new tea prices rose at least two- to three-fold, and teas over five years old rose five- or six-fold at the least, or ten- to twenty-fold at the most. But dealers widely note that not every Liubao tea enjoyed such gains—the boom was confined to a few leading brand enterprises such as “Sanhe,” “China Tea,” and “Maosheng.”
From 2019, to ensure tea availability in every region, the Guangxi Wuzhou Tea Factory adopted a regional allocation system, and dealers had to wait 3-6 months after payment for delivery. Zhang Junwei, general manager of Wuzhou China Tea Co., Ltd., also admits Liubao tea has indeed seen the best market in its history: in 2021, Wuzhou China Tea’s sales rose 35% over 2020, and in 2022 another 50% over 2021. Though manufacturers’ sales all surged, it is undeniable that much of that tea still sits in dealers’ warehouses—what truly reaches end consumers is not yet large. Liubao tea’s boom is mainly within tea circles; ordinary consumers’ awareness of it remains limited. Still, Liubao tea trading enterprises widely report that after the major central mainstream media covered the General Secretary’s attention to Liubao tea at the 20th Party Congress, noticeably more consumers have been asking about it. Everyone agrees that in the next two years, Liubao tea prices will see another round of substantial growth.
The future is promising
A group of leading enterprises is converging on Wuzhou
Whether an industry can flourish depends above all on the driving force of its leading enterprises. For years, Wuzhou City’s natural advantage in developing Liubao tea has been its two state-owned Liubao tea enterprises—Wuzhou China Tea Co., Ltd., backed by a central state-owned enterprise, and Guangxi Wuzhou Tea Factory Co., Ltd., under the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Supply and Marketing Cooperative. Both were founded in the early 1950s and have never once interrupted Liubao tea production and processing.
After 2008, the two state-owned enterprises, besides continuing their export business, gradually began cultivating the domestic market. In 2018, Wuzhou China Tea’s new plant was completed and its sales crossed the 100-million-yuan mark, making it China Tea Co., Ltd.’s fastest-growing subsidiary for three consecutive years; in 2021, its sales reached 200 million yuan.
Also in early 2018, the Wuzhou Tea Factory, in the same city, held celebrations for the 65th anniversary of its founding. Established the same year as Wuzhou China Tea, it is a key enterprise of the national supply and marketing cooperative system, a repeated winner of the “Advanced Collective of the National Supply and Marketing Cooperative System” title, and its “Sanhe” Liubao tea brand is a “China Time-honored Brand.”
In recent years, the Guangxi Autonomous Region Supply and Marketing Cooperative has attached great importance to the Wuzhou Tea Factory’s development. On October 21, 2022, the Guangxi Sanhe Liubao Tea Technology R&D Center was established, in the hope that the Wuzhou Tea Factory would play a leading industry role and strengthen technological R&D, with improving product quality and market competitiveness at its core, to build the Guangxi Liubao tea industry bigger and stronger.
Wuzhou Maosheng Tea Co., a private tea enterprise in the front rank of Guangxi’s Liubao tea development, was founded in 2003. With the care and support of the Wuzhou municipal Party committee and government, it has for years persisted in promoting Liubao tea history and culture nationwide, making an important contribution to the tea’s publicity and popularization.
Liang Weilong, deputy director of the Wuzhou Tea Industry Development Service Center, said that only by supporting leading enterprises to grow bigger and stronger, letting the leaders head the industry, can the industry as a whole ultimately be built up. As of 2021, Wuzhou City had 2 national key leading enterprises in agricultural industrialization, 7 autonomous-region-level agricultural leading enterprises, 9 enterprises above designated size, and 13 export-registered enterprises. With Liubao tea selling so well, more and more capital is coming to Wuzhou to invest, and these enterprises will enter the ranks of Wuzhou’s leading tea enterprises in turn, driving the Guangxi Liubao tea industry to grow bigger and stronger as a whole. Since 2021, the Guangxi Liubao Tea Industry Development Cluster and the Cangwu County National Modern Agricultural Industry Park have been under fervent construction in Wuzhou. As a major project coordinated by the autonomous region, the cluster represents a total investment of 3.5 billion yuan, positioned as a specialty industry cluster integrating Liubao tea production, warehousing, industry public services and research innovation, exploring a diversified “tea + culture + tourism” development model to boost high-quality development of Wuzhou’s Liubao tea industry.
In addition, to give full play to Cangwu County’s role as Liubao tea’s core production area, the Wuzhou municipal government invested in establishing the Cangwu County National Modern Agricultural Industry Park. The park has already brought in China Second Metallurgy Group Co., Ltd., Guangxi State Farms Group Co., Ltd. and a group of other enterprises. Through this cluster effect, it plays an important role in raising Liubao tea’s fame in domestic and foreign markets and accelerating the industry’s development. Figures released by the Wuzhou Tea Industry Development Service Center show that by the end of 2023, tea garden area will exceed 600,000 mu; the city will cultivate more than 3 Liubao tea enterprises with annual output value above 1 billion yuan, more than 10 above 100 million yuan, and more than 20 above designated size.
Looking at the already-mature pu-erh and white tea industries: if leading enterprises are the necessary condition for an industry to grow big and strong, then dealers—the capillaries of the industry’s body—are the essential condition; only a sufficient number of dealers can ensure that Liubao tea quickly raises its profile and enlarges its market.
At present, Liubao tea’s domestic consumer market is mainly in Guangxi, Guangdong, Shandong, Beijing, Shaanxi and other provinces. Compared with dealers of other tea types, Liubao tea dealers account for a smaller share, and Wuzhou’s planning and marketing capacity for brand promotion is insufficient—important reasons why Liubao tea sells hot within the industry but has not caught fire in the mass market.
But with the General Secretary’s attention, the mustering of leading enterprises, and Liubao tea’s unique health benefits, more tea traders across the country will join its distribution. Building Liubao tea bigger and stronger—the future is promising.
Produced by: China Cooperation Times · Tea Weekly All Media
—
Author: Lam Sam (LamSam), the Old Tea Head
ZENTEA MANOR
Alliance Supply Chain Services Limited
Unit 902-3, 9/F, Mini Cube, 10 Sam Chuk Street, San Po Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong
www.zentea-shop.com Email:info@zentea-shop.com
