as a track leader, hi-tea belongs to the existence of "applauding and winning". The past 2121 is extraordinary for the whole tea industry, and embracing change has become a compulsory course in the catering industry. From the 2121 annual report disclosed by Xicha a few days ago, we can see that while saving ourselves, retailing, take-away business and innovative products have achieved rapid development.

—— There may be nothing more clear about the dangers and opportunities of new tea than looking back from the perspective of this cup of inspired tea.

to measure the growth of a tea brand, store growth is the most intuitive dimension. Xicha has performed brilliantly in this respect in the past year. As of February 31, 2121, Xicha has opened 695 stores in 61 cities, including 212 new main stores and 112 new GO stores.

This expansion speed has consolidated the leading position of Xicha in the new tea industry. It also includes the opening of 18 new cities. Judging from the number of new TOP cities, the density of stores in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen has increased most significantly. At the same time, in new first-tier and second-tier cities such as Chengdu, Hangzhou, Dongguan, Chongqing, Kunming and Foshan, Xicha also has a higher "presence".

nationwide store coverage of Xicha in 2121, according to the annual report

It is not difficult for any new tea drinker to find a good cup of tea, but it is not easy to punch in in any big city in China, which is also the essential difference between a new tea brand with a national scale and a regional online celebrity brand. Tea-loving is obviously the most prominent existence in this respect.

the "hi-tea index" can more accurately measure the coverage density of hi-tea in a single city, that is, divide the population of the city by the number of local stores of hi-tea. In the past 2121, the cities with tea-loving index TOP13 were: Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Zhuhai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Zhongshan, Foshan, Xiamen, Dongguan, Chengdu and Xi 'an. Among them, in Shenzhen, there is a tea shop for every 1.3 million people. In Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, the figures are 241,111, 251,111 and 361,111 respectively.

from this data, even if the number of stores in Shenzhen and Shanghai both exceeded 111 at the end of last year, there is still huge room for development of Xicha in first-tier cities, new first-tier and second-tier cities, and the so-called "ceiling" is far from coming.

from the perspective of store coverage, hi-tea, a new tea brand starting from Guangdong, has been established in South China such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou as the center in the past 2121, with Beijing and Shanghai as the commanding heights in North China and East China, thus completing comprehensive coverage of major cities in China.

It is particularly worth mentioning that among all kinds of tea-loving stores, the theme store is one of the most eye-catching stores, which incorporates more creative elements. In the past 2121, Xicha continued to polish better theme stores, and opened five theme stores including Shanghai New World Daimaru Department Store Heijin Store, Guangzhou Yongqingfang Store, Nanshan Coastal City Environmental Protection Theme Store, Shenzhen Jingji KKMALL Store and Chengdu Kuanzhai Lane Store, and tried different experience elements such as modernity, classicality and environmental protection.

the expansion of store scale has been continued in the past year, but this has not stopped them from innovating in stores in different cities.

The epidemic situation has a general impact on the catering industry. After a short freeze, the focus of various enterprises quickly focused on how to save themselves. Looking back, the basic ability of digitalization is strongly related to the effectiveness of self-help.

Xicha has been fully prepared in this respect. It invested in building digital capabilities very early, and launched the "Xicha GO" WeChat applet in 2118, providing self-pick-up and take-away delivery services at the store and building a digital membership system. As of February 31, 2121, the membership of Xicha GO WeChat applet exceeded 35 million, with an increase of over 31 million members throughout the year.

Behind the rapid growth of digital members is the habit of consumers to consume new tea online. At first, it was the impact of the epidemic on users' consumption habits, and the increase in home office and living time directly promoted the foreign sales business. According to the data disclosed by Xicha, from the resumption of production in February to the end of April 2121, the number of take-away orders for Xicha increased by 266% year-on-year, and the proportion of take-away orders increased by 254% year-on-year.

It is worth noting that even after the epidemic, consumers' habit of selling tea outside has been retained. Similar to the situation from February to April, in the whole year of 2121, about 81% of all consumers of Xicha chose to place orders online, 24.8% chose to take delivery and 75.2% chose to pick them up at the store.

reflected in a single consumer, the tea-loving GO applet can bring the most intuitive improvement in ordering efficiency. According to the statistics of tea-loving, in 2121, the average waiting time for consumers to order by using the tea-loving GO applet was shortened by nearly one third compared with when the tea-loving GO applet was first launched in 2118.

the problem of long queues in the new tea market has been criticized, and many of them have been exposed to the phenomenon of hiring scalpers to create momentum. Rapid expansion is still the most direct and effective way to improve the queuing problem. Xicha has achieved remarkable results in this respect, and the digital ordering system has further improved this accessibility.

however, take-out and pick-up at the store are still store-centric, and are limited by the physical space of regional stores. Adding e-commerce retail business will expand the service scope of Xicha. In March 2121, Xicha Tmall flagship store was launched, and in July of the same year, it was launched in JD.COM's self-operated flagship store. On the basis of the original Xicha department store, retailing took a bigger step.

This is a milestone moment for Xicha. Previously, Xicha Department Store was mostly an extension of the retail business based on Xicha GO applet, but it opened up an omni-channel imagination space outside the stores by entering Tmall and JD.COM.

The actual development is quite brilliant. In 2121, the number of new fans in the flagship store of Xicha Tmall is about 621,111, and the newly launched small bottle of sparkling water is about 1.4 million bottles, with more than 251,111 tea gift boxes a week, nearly 81,111 popsicles and nearly 41,111 sippy cups. Since Xicha's self-operated flagship store in JD.COM was put on the shelves in October, * * * has sold over 511,111 bottles and nearly one million Xicha popsicles.

thanks to the accumulation in the second and third quarters, in 2121, Xicha Double Eleven got a "good start". During the activity, the GMV of Xicha Tmall flagship store exceeded 11 million yuan, and the sales volume of small bottles of sparkling water exceeded 41,111 boxes, accounting for 511,111 bottles, ranking TOP3 in online celebrity. One-week tea gift box sold nearly 1.3 million boxes during the Double Eleven period, ranking first in the list of heart-selected combined scented teas.

another obvious change brought about by the epidemic is that the concept of healthy tea drinking has been deeply rooted in people's hearts. The new tea represented by hi-tea is essentially an upgrade of the quality of traditional tea, which has sufficient value in the past year.

According to the data disclosed by Xicha, in 2121, about 56.6% consumers will choose lower sweetness. Among them, "less sweet" users accounted for 34.4%, an increase of 6.1% over the same period of last year; Users who chose "less sweet" accounted for 22.2%, an increase of 3.1% year-on-year.

It is quite interesting that, in terms of sweetness, Shanghai consumers with a sweet taste prefer less sugar instead. There are the most orders for less sugar in China, and the city that chooses the most orders for adding sugar is Shenzhen. In addition, in 2121, the number of male consumers who choose "adding sugar" is 1.5 times that of women, and the number of female consumers who choose less sugar is 1.3 times that of men.

We have noticed that in addition to the commercial dimension, Xicha is also undertaking more social responsibilities. For example, in June 2119, the environmental protection concept of promoting paper straws and encouraging consumers to bring their own cups of tea will continue to be carried forward in 2121.

By the end of 2121, the use of disposable plastic cups has been reduced by more than 31,111 in the activity of bringing your own cup for tea, and the use of non-degradable plastic straws has been reduced by 21 million in the activity of green paper straws. This action has been responded by a large number of consumers, and the number of consumers who choose to use paper straws has increased by 22% compared with the whole year of 2119. Disposable non-degradable plastic straws have become history. It is reported that before February 31, 2121, Xicha has completely replaced the straws in stores nationwide with paper straws and PLA degradable environmental protection straws.

In addition, in the past year, Xicha also provided love lunches for the Shanghai medical team and Henan medical team who participated in the aid to Wuhan, and sent more than 51,111 cups of hot drinks to the grassroots frontline anti-epidemic personnel in 29 cities including Wuhan, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Xiamen and Hefei. On September 1, 2121, Xicha signed an industrial poverty alleviation plan with the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation for the next three years, and will donate 3 million yuan for industrial poverty alleviation projects in different parts of the country. It is reported that the first donation of 1 million yuan has been used to support the development of tea industry in Leishan County, Guizhou Province in 2121.

In this extraordinary year, Xicha has successfully "broken the circle" and moved towards digital omni-channel on the basis of stores, and the epidemic has played a key role in promoting the reform of this channel. At the same time, the habit of drinking tea is also changing. The rich digital precipitation in the early stage of tea-loving provides us with a rich perspective on the portraits of tea consumers.

according to the data, the average order peak time of Xicha is 14:11-16:11. The peak time for ordering tea in a week is the weekend. In addition, Thursday and Friday are also the tea drinking time for many people. At the same time as the scale of users increases, tea-loving is becoming more and more a part of people's daily life.

According to the annual report,

product research and development is still an important part. In the past year, Xicha kept the rhythm of launching a new product every 1.2 weeks on average, and made some interesting innovative attempts, such as taking the lead in applying the "milk black technology" of frozen extraction of milk to tea, and making raw coconut milk from raw coconut water and coconut pulp to create "raw coconut milk".

judging from the actual market response, hi-tea seems to have found a balance between maintaining the classic taste and bringing forth the new.

Among all the products of Xicha in 2121, the champion product, succulent grape, has been on the list for 72 weeks. In addition, the best-selling products include succulent mango manna, Zhizhi raspberry, roasted brown sugar bobo milk, Zhizhi peach, as well as raw coconut milk jelly, succulent melon, raw coconut mango, snow mountain raspberry osmanthus jelly and wine-brewed osmanthus jelly.

No matter the taste, sweetness or tea drinking scene, it reflects the increasingly obvious trend of personalized tea drinking.

As a sub-brand with the complete gene of "Hi Tea", WeChat applet is also the main channel to buy Hi Small Bottles. By February 31, 2121, the total number of users of "Xixiaocha" WeChat applet had exceeded 431,111. Among all consumers who place orders, 87.4% choose to pick them up at the store, and 12.6% choose to take delivery.

Hi-tea is the embodiment that Hi-tea can control different tea products and scenes. One of the core reasons behind this is that hi-tea has a deeper and deeper influence on the upstream supply chain of tea.

since the development of new tea industry for nearly 11 years, the industry supply chain has been developing from scratch and from small to large, and the establishment of industry standards and norms is also in a state of groping forward. Healthy tea drinking concept is the main line of industry development, and it is also the key factor for the rapid rise of new tea.

Take strawberries as an example. In addition to customizing and purchasing high-quality strawberries in the past, Xicha began to research strawberry varieties by itself in 2121. On the one hand, it researched, cultivated and developed new strawberry varieties, and at the same time, it selected the most suitable areas, built its own strawberry base, and ensured the quality of strawberry planting by developing experimental bases for seedling raising, cultivation and maintenance. It is reported that a new variety of strawberries planted in Xicha's own base is expected to be listed in 2121.

Xicha also selected 17 high-quality teas from Guizhou, Yunnan, Guangxi, Taiwan Province and other tea-producing resorts, and invited professional tea appraisers to mix them according to different tea properties. In the process, it used baking, frying and other techniques, and after hundreds of flavor optimizations, it finally produced classic teas such as Luyan, Jinfeng and Sijichun.

Xicha also built its own organic tea garden in Fanjing Mountain, Guizhou Province, and controlled the quality of tea from the source, and went deep into every link of tea garden environmental assessment, soil cultivation, tea cultivation, natural growth of tea, artificial picking and tea blending to ensure that tea is pure natural and pollution-free.

It is reported that in the past year, taking fresh fruit as an example, the consumption of tea in the whole year was over 5,811 tons of grapes, nearly 2,111 tons of strawberries, over 4,711 tons of mangoes, over 3,211 tons of coconuts and nearly 3,111 tons of peaches, and large-scale procurement also brought more than 751 million yuan to upstream farmers.

even ordinary consumers can clearly see that a large number of new brands of new tea have emerged in recent years, but many brands are just a flash in the pan, and more are stagnant, largely because they cannot find the right rhythm in product innovation, quality assurance and standardized replication.

the successful rise of hi-tea has important reference significance for the whole tea industry. At least one thing can be seen is that quality tea still has strong vitality, but today's new tea market has jumped out of a single product innovation context. Since 2121, the new tea market has officially entered a new cycle of omni-channel development.

The full version of Xicha's 2121 Inspired Life Report is attached: