Bama Tea’s Mid-Autumn tea mooncakes and tea gifts.
“The bright moon rises over the sea; though far apart, we share this moment.”
The annual Mid-Autumn Festival is fast approaching. Imbued with the meaning of “reunion,” Mid-Autumn is a festival the Chinese hold dear — and a marketing occasion every major tea brand seizes firmly. Reporters of China Cooperative Times·Tea Weekly have learned that about 70% of leading tea companies carefully design and launch Mid-Autumn tea gifts, making the most of the festival gift market to grow their seasonal business.
Through their research, the reporters found that this Mid-Autumn, marketing in the tea world has been upgraded once again. Leading tea brands have rolled out “guochao” (China-chic) tea gifts, building a rich festive atmosphere, while mid-tier tea brands have doubled down on creativity, blending their own characteristics into inventive gifts such as tea mooncakes and cross-industry mash-ups.
A diversity of products lets culture be passed down and creativity blossom. On one hand, tea brands use their products and events to promote themselves at the festival moment, forming a distinctive “brand + festival” symbol. On the other, through Mid-Autumn activities and cultural outreach, they advocate and carry forward fine traditional values.
Today, the reporters take stock of tea brands’ Mid-Autumn marketing approaches and analyze their distinctive plays.
Breaking up the pairing: tea and mooncakes sold in separate boxes
On August 15, Amendment No. 1 to the national standard GB 23350—2021, “Requirements for Restricting Excessive Packaging of Commodities — Foods and Cosmetics,” officially took effect. The amendment stresses that mooncakes should not be packed together with other goods. So, when researching Mid-Autumn tea marketing, the reporters found that most brands chose to sell tea and mooncakes in two separate gift boxes.
Bama Tea’s Mid-Autumn tea mooncakes and tea gifts.
Take Bama Tea as an example. This Mid-Autumn, Bama Tea launched six tea-mooncake gift boxes and two tea gift boxes. The six tea-mooncake fillings take black tea, green tea, oolong tea and jasmine tea as their base notes, paired with red bean, custard, mango and other ingredients, with tea powder kneaded into the dough — low in oil and sugar, healthy and refreshing. Of the two tea gift boxes, the “Fu Tea” gift combines tea and teaware, containing four famous Fujian teas — Tieguanyin, Shou Mei white tea, Da Hong Pao and Jin Jun Mei — plus two oil-spot Jian-ware cups. The “Meiman” gift combines gongfu black tea with ripe Pu-erh tea.
The “Fu Tea” gift.
In recent years, the guochao trend has been a hot pursuit among leading tea brands, and Bama Tea is no exception. All eight products feature guochao illustration: the tea-mooncake series weaves traditional Mid-Autumn elements such as the moon, the jade rabbit and osmanthus blossoms into its artwork, conjuring a full festive mood. The outer box of the “Fu Tea” gift is a centrally symmetrical double-door box; the inner box bears auspicious guochao motifs of “fortune, prosperity, longevity and joy,” carrying the meaning “open the door to welcome fortune; with the gift, fortune arrives.” At Mid-Autumn, gathering the vast starry sky into a teacup, admiring the bright moon above and speaking of reunion on earth — a sense of ceremony in full measure. The “Meiman” gift box is decorated with guochao illustrations symbolizing abundance year after year, joy arriving at one’s brows, wealth and honor in bloom, and good things coming in pairs — entrusting the finest wishes of the human world to the one who receives the gift.
Since ancient times, moon-gazing, tea-drinking and mooncake-eating have been the three indispensable customs of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Tea brands crossing over into mooncake-making is nothing new. In fact, compared with other crossover brands they hold more advantages: the whole ritual of drinking tea and eating cakes is simplified in one go, and at a single store you can buy both tea and mooncakes. Exquisite packaging, diverse flavors, and a healthy, fresh philosophy set tea brands’ mooncakes apart from traditional ones.
A battle of wild ideas: playful design that refuses to be mediocre
Every Mid-Autumn, tea-gift packaging design is contested ground. Major tea brands all bring out elaborately designed creative Mid-Autumn tea gifts to show off their distinctive design. Well before the festival, the reporters were already being dazzled on e-commerce platforms by exquisitely packaged tea gifts of every kind.
While leading tea brands are enamored of the guochao style, mid-tier tea brands take the road less traveled, designing gifts around their own characteristics and creating bright spots in Mid-Autumn marketing.
Chashili’s “Space Tea Journey” mooncake gift box.
Taking the planets as its inspiration, Chashili designed its tea mooncakes in the shape of little planets, and even includes a free “space tea man” figurine.
A buyer’s photo of Shang Xia’s “Chess Full of Joy” Mid-Autumn tea gift.
Shang Xia’s Mid-Autumn gift-box series.
Shang Xia, a subsidiary brand of the Hermès group, let its imagination run even further: the gift box is designed as a Chinese checkers board, the playing pieces are 18 Pu-erh tuocha, and it comes with three white porcelain teacups. Shang Xia also offers other creative tea gifts, including a rotating drawer box, a three-dimensional greeting-card vanity case, and a lantern.
Shantiantu’s “Super Moon” Mid-Autumn tea gift.
Shantiantu’s Mid-Autumn tea-gift packaging can even be reused: take out the Yunnan Moonlight White tea and the tea mooncakes, touch the jade-rabbit motif on the packaging, and it instantly transforms into a full-moon night lamp. Who wouldn’t want a “personal moon” of their own — let alone a super moon this stunning?
ONCHA’s “Full Moon, Full Reunion·Wandering Tea Collection” gift box.
In addition, the reporters found that ONCHA’s Mid-Autumn tea gift is quite the cross-industry mash-up: it actually combines three products that seem to have nothing in common — tea, a frisbee, and a card-based board game — tucking the modern lifestyle young people love into a single box, revealed layer by layer.
Ever more varied Mid-Autumn tea gifts also reflect tea brands’ hope of infusing consumers with deeper emotional meaning through creative design, making the festival itself more fun.
Judging by this year’s Mid-Autumn marketing in the tea world, every major brand has mined new ideas from the traditional festival, drawn insights from social life, and presented them in creative ways young consumers love — highlighting their own character while resonating with consumers, and winning the hearts of both market and public.
Even though Mid-Autumn marketing is an annual routine for brands, consumers and the times are iterating fast, and an unchanging marketing formula is no cure-all. Only by arming every marketing touchpoint with the twin weapons of innovation and content can a brand hope to become consumers’ first choice.
Produced by: China Cooperative Times·Tea Weekly, All-Media
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Author: Lam Sam (LamSam), the Old Tea Head
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