By Helen Xu Fei

Tea Finder is a leading gourmet tea retailer in China. It has over 20 stores located in downtown areas in major cities all over the country. When one enters into a Tea Finder store, one will be overwhelmed by aesthetic display of rich choices of tea and exquisite tea wares and tea accessories. As indicated by its sales slogan “find the world’s favorite teas”, Tea Finder boasts one of the most comprehensive tea catalogues that includes not only gourmet Chinese tea but also exotic tea flavors from around the world.

There is a total of 210 flavors of packed tea sourced by veteran tea tasters from well-known sources or leading blenders in China, Japan, India, Africa, Europe and Sri Lanka, etc. It is a heaven for tea lovers, where they can find nearly all types of tea, from mainstream varieties such as green, black, oolong, jasmine and Chinese black (post-fermented tea) to rare or exotic categories such as yellow, white, and European flavored tea, fruit tea, rooibos tea, organic tea and herbal infusions.
The tea store chain was opened by Jiasheng Tea Co. Ltd., a Hangzhou headquartered tea company engaged in tea production, export and retail business. It has four subsidiary plants located in green tea producing counties with favorable tea resources, three of them in Zhejiang Province and one at Sichuan Province. These plants produce 5,000 tons of tea annually, the majority of which is sencha green tea and Chinese green tea. Other varieties include genmaicha, jasmine tea, flavored tea, hojicha and tea blends that are roasted, flavored or blended using either sencha or select Chinese green tea.
 “Jiasheng was founded in 1996 and initially we were 100% focused on export business,” said Wu Jianming, the director of Jiasheng in an interview with Tea & Coffee Asia at his headquarters in Hangzhou. “Like most producing country, our tea was mainly sold in bulk packages to international users as raw materials. Europe, Japan and the United States have been major importers of Jiasheng tea.”
“We are one of those earlier investors that imported a sencha production line from Japan. Sencha used to be our leading type of exported tea – in the past, we sold 3,000 tons to Japan annually,” remarked Wu about one of their leading products. Sencha was a very marginal tea product in China before the country’s economy reform. After the decentralization of the tea industry in the mid 1980s, strong demand from Japan triggered investment in sencha production in China. Sencha export to Japan reached a record high of 16,600 tons in 2001, according to statistics from CIQ (China Inspection and Quarantine Bureau). However, since 2005, sencha exports to Japan have dropped rapidly, and according to Wu, are currently around 4,000 tons annually; Jiasheng’s export volume of sencha also dropped. “Chinese sencha is actually free from pesticides, but it takes time for Japanese consumers to change their negative perception of Chinese foods in general and restore faith in China exports,” Wu admitted.
Wu is a graduate of Zhejiang University and holds a degree in Tea Science. The academic background gave him more knowledge and insights regarding quality and technology advancement. Jiasheng has the first fully automated gourmet green tea production line in China, state-of-art sencha production lines imported from Japan and premium refinery, blending and packaging equipment. It also has in-house freezers and cold storage warehouses at each plant for optimal freshness of tea products. Source control measures are implemented at both of their own tea estates or at contracted tea planters’ to ensure compliance with pesticide and hygienic standards.

Domestic sales
Jiasheng ventured into domestic sales in 2004, triggered by the changes in both international and domestic tea markets. In the past decade or so, Chinese exporters faced harder times due to a surplus of global tea supply, rising domestic production costs and sluggish adjustments of tea price. RMB appreciation also further eroded the shrinking profit margin of export business. In contrast to the international market, both tea sales volume and value grew favorably in China as China’s economy kept growing.
“We registered the Tea Finder retail brand in 2004, as well-off Chinese consumers showed a strong demand for gourmet tea. Our ambition is to offer a one stop shopping experience to gourmet tea lovers, and share our tea experience and aesthetic tea culture with our consumers.” Wu added. The first Tea Finder store was opened in a posh Shanghai shopping mall in 2005, and Wu explained how they decided on the store location: “Tea Finder chose a sales counter in a luxury department store as these places are frequented by our target group of consumers, hence it’s much easier to attract walk-in consumers with our stylish open space design.”
Besides the emphasis on the quality of tea, Jiasheng also integrated packaging development in product development. “Our tea is targeted at city dwellers who are looking for quality, style and identity, so our packaging should deliver a fashionable message that appeals to them.” Wu said. Tea Finder packaging reflects a modern simple and smart concept: retail tea is packaged in small round metal tins that better protect the freshness of their content and enhance logistic effectiveness. The artwork on the labels of these silver-color tins use bright colors as a striking visual indicator of each category of tea inside.
Currently, Tea Finder has stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Changzhou, Qingdao, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Dalian and Shijiazhuang. Northeast China’s Changchun and Haerbing will be the next store locations. So far, all stores except Guangzhou are invested in and run directly by Jiasheng. When asked about franchise plans, Wu replied cautiously: “We’ve seen many unsuccessful cases of rapid expansion through franchise that eventually tarnished brand image. We’ll not launch into franchise until our business model becomes mature enough.” Tea Finder has expanded slowly but steadily, Guangzhou is the only franchise store at the moment, and next year, they’ll offer franchise rights to selected partners. “Strict entrance criteria and due precaution will be exercised,” Wu emphasized.

Top retail choices
Among all retail categories, green, black and oolong are the best selling teas. Longjing, Golden Eyebrow, Darjeeling and Anji White are top choices. Though the Chinese palate for tea is still quite traditional, fruit tea and European flavored tea is growing in popularity among younger age groups. Wu recalled an incident at one of the Beijing stores during his visit. “A lady came to say thanks to me when I was there,” Wu said. He was a bit surprised as normally the vendor should thank his customers, not the other way around. The lady then explained that her son who was in primary school used to be addicted to carbonated drinks. She had tried her best to make him quit but failed. Tea Finder’s fruit tea helped her solved the problem. She told me that her boy switched to fruit tea because of the rich, sweet and fragrant taste, and even asked his mother to prepare fresh tea for him to bring to school.
Encouraged by growing awareness of a healthy lifestyle and food safety, Jiasheng planned to launch a sister brand Jiasheng Tea Mart. It is a budget brand with more choices of flavored blends targeting women and kids. Tea Mart products will be sold through both regular and Internet stores and will do wholesale business as well. The first Tea Mart will officially open this year.
“Now our sales volume at the international and domestic market is at a ratio of 60:40, and we expect the ratio to increase to 50:50 in the near future as domestic consumption growth is strong.” Wu said.