Support small farmers, some links in Southern Taiwan and London (I will try add more links)
In Kaoshuing non urban area:
Tea Gardens and Hot Springs in Kaohsiung’s Countryside | 雜誌 | 聯合新聞網 (udn.com)
London tea shop with small farm Taiwan tea:
France ( laïzé opera Paris)
The small farm thing.has always been.common in taiwan. Now its become super fashionable and auite expensive. I hope more farmers/producers are seeing the money from the massive marketing inflation we are experiencing recently.
Coffee has certainly become a pretty hot thing thisbdecade here, seems to be slowly running out of steam though as far as the production side and craft/artisan style manufacturers. Probably will continue along a is, with new cool ones poppin up here and there.
The aboriginal marketing seems all the rage currently. And mail order meals due to the virus.
£46 for 100g. At 5g per pot, roughly £2.50 per pot of tea.
Maybe a good export market for high end teas
Its pretty over saturated as is. I wouldnt get into exporting teas without some really solid experience and a very good buisness plan.
This applies to any business. Learn and have a good plan.
Very true. Except tea is a very old industries with very large established players. Harder to innovate i would think as a small guy. But respect to anyone that tries!
Maybe , but very difficult. The Taiwanese really know their tea. I have a brother in law who could tell you 50 different kinds of tea; especially green teas, who could do that in the UK? And he is just a Taiwanese cop, not in the tea business. It would be tough to market.
Well maybe so, but with people paying more for high end coffee and tea, market is different than a few years ago
you could be right
Would not small guy be easier to innovate? Seems big ones would be more set in their ways.
Ya for sure. Anyone can innovate in any industry. Just an equipment thing when small , makes climate control hard. Costs some money for setup and adjustments. But you’re right, anyone can do it. As with anything. Just need some $ or a lot of elbow grease and a location.
Yes ! Do you grow tea or coffee?
Have grown coffee in the past. Never tea other than a few potted plants at home for fun.
You?
Coffee make good houseplants with their shade tolerance.
I have not grown them but visited farms with that. You can make a farm airbnb since air bnb surrendered in China
https://tw.forumosa.com/t/airbnb-gives-up-on-china-in-shifts-to-outbound-travel/220064
There are many tea innovators in Taiwan, high end tea is not a big market like coffee worldwide, at least not yet. Tea is more subtle its not an instant graitification hit like coffee. But pure boutique tea has far more diversity in terms of flavours , aroma and colour than coffee .
Also the global tea market is highly fragmented, with different regions enjoying quite different kinds of tea.
Taiwanese high end tea producers don’t even need an export market, they can sell their whole stock here in Taiwan and China.
The biggest issue with selling high end tea (boutique tea, pure loose leaf) is the lack of connoisseur consumers such as you would get now with wine and whiskey abd coffee around the world . As Crusher mentioned older Taiwanese are amongst the most knowledgeable about quality green and oolong tea worldwide. They will know from experience why this batch is worth 5x that batch, and you better grab it before its sold out (tea quality varies a lot from same producer yearr to year, just like wine).
Overseas, generally speaking, you would be lucky if somebody could tell the difference between oolong and green tea let alone which tea is a good one.
Just like any consumer brands marketing plays a huge role, hence the success of Twinings copycat TWG from Singapore. Twinings isnt high end for tea but for most tea drinkers it would be high end.
One further complication is that Indian teas and Chinese teas use different grading and nomenclature systems and also archaic confusing terms. What a mess.
I’m looking at this tea business again but you really have to know what part of the market you are aiming at, and even then there are no guarantees. Bubble tea is still doing very well and has the highest likeliehood of success commercially.
Just spent £110 on a very tiny bag of Da Yu Ling. £100 for a larger black tea box from an old place near NCCU I have used for years. For less high quality but for breakfast, happy to pay £30 for a TWG tin of Earl Grey.
Live in the UK but will pay premium to order good Taiwan teas or Singapore mass market. Harrogate tea is acceptable once in a while but very common.
yeah, bubble tea shops seem to be everywhere. Some do sell pure tea drinks too. UK might be good market for high end milk tea flavors from Taiwan. Taiwan has sell high end, as lots cheaper teas and now SirLanka is cheaper option.
Nice post!
Interesting how cheap garbage is almost the best money maker. Same with everything i suppose. But taiwanese do tea next level. I truly appreciate their compulsive addiction to it. Anyone that spends that much time and energy to research and develop something deserves respect!
Ps. China is an export market 