Figure shows Blue Edition 2024 Nanxiangzi 200g small cake
On September 27, the first China Black Tea Conference was held in Anhua County, Yiyang City, Hunan Province. The conference included themed activities such as the meeting on the development of new quality productive forces in the black tea industry, the press conference for the release of research results in black tea culture, the Anhua tea-tourism industry inspection activity, and various business activities. In recent years, Yiyally City has continuously promoted the brand maintenance and cultivation of Anhua black tea, advancing the integration of tea, tourism, culture, sports, and health. Currently, the total area of tea gardens in the city remains stable at 500,000 mu, with the comprehensive output value of the black tea industry exceeding 26 billion yuan, and its scale ranks first in Hunan and second in the nation. Furthermore, Anhua has been ranked among the top ten of China’s top 100 tea counties for many consecutive years.
From the comments of readers on tea industry influencers’ social media, it is evident that opinions regarding direct selling are highly divided.
But before the echoes of the conference had even faded, voices of criticism against Anhua black tea quickly arose, and with intense emotion. It should be said that because the Chinese tea industry is large in scale and diverse in variety, each tea region has its own strengths and different development paths; it is entirely normal for there to be differing opinions regarding the evaluation of a specific region. However, in this instance, the “banquet” had not even ended before the guests were already looking to flip the table, which is truly rare.
After receiving feedback from industry readers, China Cooperation Times & Tea Weekly’s multi-media platform collected information from all sides to conduct a detailed review of the entire dispute…
1. What different voices were raised at the first China Black Tea Conference?
From September 27 to 29, the 2024 China Black Tea Conference was held with great fanfare in Anhua, Hunan; this small county by the banks of the Zijiang River was suddenly flooded with tens of thousands of participants. The reporter from China Cooperation Times & Tea Weekly’s multi-media platform also participated in this grand event, and the shock left in her heart was as profound as the impact of this tea industry “landslide” rolling through the “riverbed” of the streets.
Beyond the shock, she also had some doubts: Following the tradition of the Anxi Black Tea Culture Festival being held every three years, this year should have been the sixth session, so the full name of the conference was quite long—“2024 China Black Tea Conference Tea Ancest Festival and the 6th Hunan (Yiyang) Anhua Black Tea Culture Festival.” She said that, unlike previous years, a “2024 China Black Tea Conference” and a Tea Ancest Festival were added this year, but it was precisely this change that triggered a series of differing voices.
“Anhua County in Yiyang, Hunan, held an ‘Anhua Black Tea Culture Festival,’ and to expand its influence, added the title of the ‘First China Black Tea Conference.’ During one segment, there was the ‘Awarding of Key Black Tea Production Areas for 2024,’ and what shocked me immensely was: Menghai County in Yunnan Province and Yongde County in Yunnan Province were prominently listed! …Why did the 2008 ‘National Standards for Pu-erh Tea’ not mention it as a type of black tea at all?”
Clearly, some peers in the tea industry are not convinced by the banner of the “China Black Tea Conference” established by Anhua. “This also exposes part of Anhua’s ambition—to use its absolute strength in securing the ‘First China Black Tea Conference’ to become the rule-maker for this category. Haven’t we, as business elites, always emphasized that top-tier business is about establishing rules?”
2. Why did Hualai become the trigger for the attacks?
A careful review of descriptions and focuses from social media during the 2024 China Black Tea Conference reveals: The streets were filled with Ideal Hualai practitioners carrying thermos flasks, which may have been the trigger for the criticism.
Tea professional Hong Moru complained in the article “Anhua is Unbearable to Look At!” on his “Hong Moru Social Media” account: “As a result, Ideal Hualai was deeply involved, and tens of thousands of people flocked to the scene. This was indeed very grand, essentially sharing their private traffic with the entire China black tea industry. This has never happened in the history of the China tea industry.”
“Everyone had a thermos, drinking black tea as if it as water. For the next International Tea Day, they should give an award to Ideal Hualai!” — Hong Moru’s critique
“So, some Yunnan Pu-erh tea enterprises attending the conference are complaining, saying that without making a single cent in sales, they had several buckets of water drunk by a crowd of middle-aged and elderly people holding thermos flasks, dressed simply, and speaking with various national accents. Since you’ve shared the traffic, do you expect Anhua to reimburse you for those few buckets of water?”
Yunnan tea professional Shi Yilong said on his “Shi Yilong” social media account: “In fact, every tea category is frequently associated with certain keywords that trigger negative public opinion. Pu-erh tea is often associated with ‘financial tea,’ and the term ‘Anhua black tea’ has always been frequently associated with ‘pyramid schemes.’ Now, Anhua has organized the entire black tea category together to dilute the negative public and the strong association between ‘black tea and pyramid schemes’… If Pu-erh tea is trying to use the blade of ‘financial tea’ to slash into the blade of ‘pyramid scheme tea,’ I ask you, fellow Yunnan tea people, are you prepared?…”
From these emotionally charged words, we can trace the logic of the attackers: The leading enterprise of Anhua black tea is Ideal Hualai, and Ideal Hualai’s model is that of a “pyramid scheme”; now, Anhua black tea intends to unify the industry, which will inevitably pull Yunnan Pu-erh tea onto the development track of pyramid schemes. This is something the attackers absolutely cannot accept.
3. The deep-seated reasons and reflections behind the dispute
As an industry media outlet, while reviewing these viewpoints, China Cooperation Times & Tea Weekly is also reflecting: Why did a storm arise this year for the Anhua Black Tea Culture Festival, which has been held for nearly 20 years? Was it truly triggered by the competition between Yunnan Pu-erh and Anhua black tea?
In fact, Anhua’s Ideal Hualai is an enterprise with a national license for a “direct selling” model, and “direct selling” is clearly not the same as a “pyramid scheme.” But what exactly caused people’s hostility toward “direct selling”? One industry analyst said that on one hand, China’s “direct selling” has historically encountered various problems, with many becoming notorious by transforming into “pyradmid schemes”; on the other hand, for outsiders, it is difficult to discern the difference between strictly managed “direct selling” and the lawless “pyramid schemes.” Therefore, most people’s criticism or support does not stem from an understanding of the “direct selling” model, but from a conflict of interests.
In this regard, Hong Moru, the tea professional who criticized Hualai at the Black Tea Conference, revealed the reason why Anhua black tea, and especially Hualai, was criticized in his subsequent article, “Beyond Hualai, What Should the Remaining Anhua Tea People Do with Tea?”: “In fact, over the years, any topic regarding Hualai on social media basically forms two voices automatically: support and opposition. Everyone takes the moral high ground to attack the other side, but in reality, within this public opinion context, there is no morality to speak of; positions are only related to interests.” If readers closely examine the comments following the columns of Hong Moru and Shi Yilong, they will find that the crowd is divided into two factions by interest, as incompatible as fire and water.
If it were merely about interests, the matter would be simple. But tea professional Shi Yilong stated clearly in his column: “(In terms of building black tea influence), the people of Anhua County see more deeply than those from Yunnan Province. The fundamental base of China’s tea industry is currently undergoing changes. What Anhua people do with tea is not just making tea, but a ‘mass movement.’ After more than ten years of wealth accumulation, they want to start becoming the industry leaders. This Black Tea Conference was truly a display of muscle.”
An industry observer said: After years of development, China’s tea industry has accumulated an enormous industrial foundation, but it has not resolved the question of its next developmental direction. The dispute triggered by Anhua black tea actually exposes the confusion and choices of Chinese tea professionals and enterprises regarding their future direction. After the expansion of tea regions and professionals, will they continue with Yunnan Pu-erh’s “free model” (characterized essentially by decentralization and free competition), or learn from Anhua’s “concentrated model” (essentially the coordinated development of control and concentration)? These two models and directions are vastly different and will lead to different results. Regarding this, Shi Yilong, who criticized Anhua intensely, also admitted: “The Yunnan tea industry is too decentralized; Yunnan has Dayi, China Tea Corporation, Lancang, Langhe, Yulin, Chensheng, Rongshi, Xia Guan, Laotongzhi, the Six Great Tea Mountains, Longyuanhao… a long list of Pu-erh brands establishing their own territories. But Anhua does not need so many brands; having Ideal Hualai is enough.”
Thinking one step deeper, after tea regions and farmers achieve prosperity, if they do not find the path for the next stage of transformation and upgrading, will “freedom” inevitably lead to “financial tea”? This observer told the China Cooperation Times & Tea Weekly reporter: Anxi in Fujian, which was once the most profitable tea-producing county in China, saw so many “promoters of financial tea” emerge after the peak of Tieguanyin development; what is the intrinsic link between these promoters and Yunnan Pu-erh teaming up in Guangdong to continuously stage “financial tea” explosions? Besides moving from the real to the virtual, does “financial tea” also have a connection to the gambling culture that once lingered in rural areas, etc.? These important questions deserve in-depth discussion and serious reflection by the entire industry. He concluded by saying that if the “direct selling” model can be managed and developed well, the governance of a tea industry at the county level is clearly much more effective and powerful compared to the breadth and difficulty of the three provinces of Yunnan, Guangdong, and Fujian. Is this “grid-based management and development” approach, using the county as a unit, a sample worth watching for the China tea industry, which is currently almost helpless against “financial tea”?
Editor’s Note
Having different views on an event or a development model, and having critical opinions, is normal. For over 40 years, we have been reforming, exploring, innovating, and breaking through; making mistakes is also unavoidable during reform. As an industry media outlet, regarding the exploratory development of various tea regions during the process of reform, we do not possess the ability to simply mark things with a check or an “X.” Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth, and time is the best remedy for testing right and wrong.
We all know that Chinese-style modernization includes the intrinsic characteristics of common prosperity and the coordination of material and spiritual civilization. The tea industry needs to achieve transformation and upgrading; it needs new development concepts, systems, mechanisms, and model innovation; and the tea farmers, family farms, and tea enterprises in tea regions need to adopt a proactive attitude of “prospering and seeking progress.” Otherwise, industrial leaps cannot be achieved, it will be detrimental to common prosperity, and it will be impossible to better promote rural civilization and effective governance on the foundation of industrial revitalization. If any reader feels that we are making a big deal out of this topic, this final paragraph is the fundamental reason why we insist on “making a big deal out of it.”
Produced by: China Cooperation Times & Tea Weekly Multi-media
Author: Zhao Guanghui,
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Author: Lam Sam (LamSam), the Old Tea Head
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