The development of the Pu-erh tea industry in the field of livestreaming began around 2019. For the internet ecology, which changes constantly on a “monthly” basis, five years have brought unimaginable shifts, sedimentation, reshuffling, and changes to the market. In this in-depth interview, industry veterans provided powerful insights into the current state and future of Pu-erh tea livestreaming; this serves as both a periodic record and an inspiration for the future.
Interviewee Profiles:
Xu Yahe: Visiting Vice President of the Yunnan Tea Circulation Association, expert in building Yunnan’s world-class green food brand tea industry, and Executive Director of the Shuangjiang County “Three Teas Integration” Research Institute.
Wu Yaqi: Since 2019, responsible for the supply chain segment of the Yunpin Hui (via mobile) and the Yunnan Pu-erh Tea Douyin E-commerce Livestreaming Official Base; previously worked in the tea industry for 15 years, having served various tea enterprises including Longrun Tea Group and Changning Black Tea Industry.
Considering the stages experienced by the Pu-erh tea industry’s livestreaming, what is the current trend?
Xu Yahe: The livestreaming of the Pu-erh tea industry can be discussed starting from 2020, roughly in three stages. The first stage was from 2020 to 2021; due to the impact of the pandemic at that time, many teams doing jade livestreaming in Ruili sought new business opportunities and most began “shifting their battle” to Yunnan tea, especially Pu-erh tea. The characteristic of this stage was a general lack of professional knowledge in the tea field; they had only mastered some livestreaming methods, with content and scripts being more about “streaming for the sake of streaming.” The second stage began in 2021, when some large Pu-erh tea enterprises started entering the livestreaming arena, such as Six Great Tea Mountains, Nongken, China Tea, and Mengku Rongshi; their livestreams were more branded and content-rich compared to the previous stage.
However, because of a lack of full preparation between online and offline channels during this stage, some conflicts arose, leading to a period of deceleration. The third stage began after 2023, characterized by an industry-wide rise. On one hand, there is the comprehensiveness of livestreaming platforms—growth in Pu-erh tea livestreaming can be seen on many platforms such as Douyin, WeChat Channels, Zhihu, JD.com, and Xiaohongshu; on the other hand, there is participation across the entire industry chain, from upstream supply to downstream sales, and from tea farmers to tea merchants—a trend of “livestreaming by all.” This phenomenon demonstrates everyone’s strong initiative in entering the market.
Xu Yahe conducting organic tea technical training in Yongde County, Lincang City.
As Pu-erh tea industry livestreaming has developed to this day, it is first and foremost undeniable that it has become a major means of market sales; the activity level of the vast number of people involved in tea is very high, which is inseparable from its development history. At thely same time, the current overall state of the Pu-erh tea industry presents a coexistence of professional and non-professional players.
Most people start livestreaming with just one person and one mobile phone, rather than with a professional team. Only a small number of large enterprises and brands continuously invest capital to build professional livestreaming teams, approaching Pu-erh tea livestreaming with the mindset of building a long-term career.
Wu Yaqi: From the perspective of the Douyin platform, Pu-erh tea livestreaming is quite representative. In March 2021, after conducting national market research, Douyin decided to establish a Pu-erh tea vertical livestreaming base in Yunnan. In the first year, there were only about 300 merchants, but now there are approximately 15,000, with about 3,000 of them consistently and seriously conducting livestreams.
Sales data also shows the sustained heat brought to the Pu-erh tea industry by livestreaming platforms; the sales data recorded by the base in its first year was 3.1 billion RMB, it reached 7.6 billion RMB in the second year, and surpassed 10 billion RMB in the third year. This is now the fourth year, and it has maintained a growth trend; its scale is sufficiently large.
Through livestreaming, the distance between consumers and brand owners has been shortened, establishing a trust mechanism to some extent; these are advantages brought by livestreaming beyond mere data.
Many people say that livestreaming is difficult to do this year; in my view, it is because the requirements for professionalism have become higher. When Pu-erh tea livestreaming was just starting in 2021, it was actually a major opportunity where one could stream with just a mobile phone and make money, so people flocked to this track to “seek gold.” Since this year’s Spring Festival, the entire Pu-erh tea livestreaming industry has begun to reach a watershed: one type is brand-led enterprise livestreaming, and the other is influencer/KOL livestreaming. The commonality between the two is that both are professional livestreams, but they differ in their completely different approaches. I believe that what is currently performing better, or rather, what can be done long-term and steadily, is brand-led enterprise livestreaming; they can guarantee product quality stability and, through their own product iterations and updates, allow more people to understand and love high-quality Pu-erh tea.
What are the future trends for Pu-erh tea livestreaming?
Xu Yahe: One future trend for Pu-erh tea livestreaming is professionalization, and the other is integration/collaboration. Livestreaming represents the arrival of a new internet ecology; it is not something that can yield results by just doing it perfunctorily, but requires determination and the investment of certain energy and costs, which means professionalization is the inevitable trend. A professional livestreaming team consists of at least six or seven people, and up to nearly twenty; such costs are actually difficult for many tea enterprises to sustain long-term, so my personal view leans toward pursuing integration/collaboration.
On one hand, collaborative cooperation can, to some extent, enhance technical professional capabilities on the livestreaming side, such as video production, copywriting, product selection, and the storytelling ability of anchors; on the many hands, collaboration can be cross-regional. For example, a livestreaming tea enterprise or platform in Lincang can “hold” the Gu Li Shan tea area, Menghai tea area, Pu’er tea area, or even tea areas from other provinces in its heart, because livestreaming has certain requirements for product variety; if the regional scope is too small, whether in terms of flavor or brand, it will easily become monotonous over time, reducing its appeal to consumers.
Furthermore, the preferences of consumers introduced through livestreaming are highly uncertain—they might like Pu-erh tea, they might like Dian Hong, or perhaps even Jinggu White Tea. It takes time to gradually clarify the positioning of the product system through livestreaming, but once the effects of integration/collaboration begin to manifest, the benefits of livestreaming have great potential. Taking the Shuangjiang County livestreaming base as an example, its essence is following the path of integration; relying on the “Three Teas Integration” Research Institute, the China Shuangjiang Bingdao new media accounts were born. As of now, the China Shuang_jiang Bingdao Tea Hui livestreaming room has sold 37,000 orders, totaling 42.2 million RMB, and with the addition of mall links, it has exceeded 50 million RMB.
Xu Yahe participating in farmer-linked livestreaming.
Of course, for small and micro enterprises or individual businesses, even though professionalization and integration are the future trends of Pu-erh tea livestreaming, if they do not plan to join a group for now, they will most likely have to temporarily abandon livestreaming and see what they can do—finding a position within this segment of the industry chain and excelling in that position. For example, becoming a supplier for livestreaming platforms or providing personalized customization services, etc., can still allow for very good development.
Wu Yaqi: From an enterprise perspective, the future trends of Pu-erh tea livestreaming are professionalization and branding; from a platform perspective—taking Douyin as an example—it initially did not have a mall and was an entertainment and social software; the “mall-ification” of the Doulin platform is also because it hopes that transactions on the platform can be branded, and then establish the entire ecosystem of the platform through professional livestreaming. Regarding the professionalization of livestreaming, the most direct aspect is the building of livestreaming teams; current livestreams all require professional anchors, professional operations, professional traffic management, professional controllers, and professional co-anchors, backed by a strong logistics and service team. Taking the anchors as an example, anchors in the Pu-erh tea industry must not only possess solid professional tea knowledge but also possess marketing skills that can be actively accepted by consumers; cultivating such an anchor is not easy.
In recent years, platforms focused on traffic acquisition and merchant recruitment; in the future process of building a livestreaming e-commerce ecosystem, the principle of survival of the fittest will apply.
I believe that for those who can move forward steadily and long-term in the field of Pu-erh tea livestreaming, there are the following points:
First is teams with “e-commerce genes”—teams that have a deep and accurate understanding of the development context and the mechanics of e-commerce, so they can settle down to do this work amidst a volatile environment, rather than being speculators or being easily swayed because they are unsure of what they want to do;
Second is products with brands and quality; livestreaming essentially returns to sales, and if product quality is poor, everything else is empty talk;
Third is having a good enterprise foundation, including corporate visibility, reputation, and prestige;
Fourth is having resources—resources of raw materials, resources of tea mountains; only with these can they truly become advantages.
People, products, and scenes are the foundation of e-commerce; having a continuous supply of high-quality goods is not something easily achieved in the Pu-erh tea industry; finally, there is the service system. The initial return rate for Pu-erh tea industry livestreaming was around 10%, but now it is over 50%, as consumers are comparing more options and becoming increasingly rational.
At the same time, how can we improve the overall service system, which is primarily focused on after-sales? This is also very important.
Speaking of livestreaming, most people’s reaction is that it is for driving sales; more traffic means bringing in more goods. For Pu-erh tea livestreaming, what is the core beyond the traffic?
Xu Yahe: The essence of livestreaming remains a type of medium tool. For Pu-erh tea livestreaming, the core beyond driving sales still lies in cultural value and content output; it is an infinite space of “Tea +”—Tea + Tourism, Tea + Homestays, Tea + Art, Tea + Literary Stories, etc. Tea itself has had this characteristic since ancient times; that kind of cross-industry cohesion is very strong, as tea is a synthesis of a beautiful life. Commodities like clothing and cosmetics have very little social attribute and no “warmth,” but tea possesses strong social, cultural, and health attributes, and its potential audience is very broad. Therefore, one must utilize this “adhesive” property of tea, the property of tea and the world. For example, currently, people make tea and sell tea, but a physical store might not see a single person in a day; if this physical store puts effort into the “Tea +” attributes, it is possible to have 1,000 people notice your online platform in a day.
Pu-erh tea livestreaming is also a form of dissemination and penetration. For a brand or an enterprise, it is, to some extent, an important promotional front. Within the content of dissemination, there may be corporate management philosophies, corporate culture, corporate values, corporate professionalism, the professionalism in describing each product, the professionalism in interpreting certain industry phenomena, the professionalism in understanding tea mountains and tea gardens, etc.; these are all the core of Pu-erh tea livestreaming, and simultaneously, they are the source from which a brand gains a good reputation.
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Author: Lam Sam (LamSam), the Old Tea Head
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