Unexpectedly, coffee is popular in the tea circle and has become a hot drink word recently. The boundary between coffee and tea is becoming more and more blurred and integrated.

New tea brands sell coffee, coffee shops launch wine products, and a "big scuffle" of the beverage track is in full swing. These enterprises are already in a highly competitive market, and now they have entered a new battlefield. What does cross-border bring to them?

Milk tea shops collectively invade the coffee market

When we want to refresh ourselves with a cup of coffee, "Starbucks" may not be the first choice.

In the last year, more and more milk tea brands began to sell coffee. Naixue's tea and Xi tea menus have the hot "raw coconut latte" this summer; After the autumn, yihetang and coco added "chestnut latte" and "osmanthus oatmeal latte" with Bailey sweet wine; In addition, Yidian, ancient tea, Qifen sweet and other brands have also launched "creative coffee" with various characteristics.

"Milk tea collectively selling coffee" is no longer simply "brushing the sense of existence", but actually poses a challenge to the coffee brand. According to meituan app, in the top five Changying Tianjie business district in Beijing, Naixue's tea and Coco's "American coffee" have been on a par with Ruixing, TIMS and Costa in the single quantity of takeout.

Sales of Naixue's tea "American coffee"

It ranks third in the business district after Starbucks and tims

The "wild hope" of milk tea for coffee is more than this:

● lucky coffee, a sub brand of Michelle ice city, opened its franchise last year and continued to sink the market;

● coco caf é has covered nearly 3000 stores by the end of April this year, accelerating the transformation to the mode of "tea + coffee";

● among the 350 newly opened stores of Naixue tea this year, the vast majority are "tea & coffee" Naixue Pro stores;

● in July, Xicha invested in the domestic boutique coffee brand "seesaw" to actively layout the coffee track

"Milk tea invading coffee" has become an indisputable fact. Originally, milk tea and coffee have become more and more "incompatible".

Why keep an eye on coffee?

It is an inevitable event that coffee is targeted by tea brands. Because in the fierce market competition, tea is gradually rolled in. How to break out of the homogenization is an important problem that tea brands must think about.

Photo source: Creative letter shooting

01 milk tea market stock game, serious internal volume

According to the 2021 new tea research report released by China chain operation association, from 2017 to 2020, China's new tea market ushered in explosive growth, and the revenue scale soared from 42.2 billion yuan to 83.1 billion yuan; However, in the next 2-3 years, the growth rate of new tea will slow down periodically, and it is expected to fall back to 10% ~ 15%. The era of high growth has come to an end.

Data source: 2021 New Tea Research Report

In addition to the poor growth expectation, the high costs of rent, labor and food materials also greatly limit the development of the industry. According to the operation and profit warning in the third quarter of 2021 disclosed by Naixue's tea, the performance of Naixue in the third quarter was "from profit to loss" for the first time in the year, and the continuous decline of profit also led to the transformation of more "standard stores" into smaller "Pro stores"; On November 10, Yan Yuese, the top flow tea of milk tea, also announced that "70 or 80 stores will be temporarily closed in Changsha".

With high cost and slow growth, the milk tea market has entered the stage of "deep stock game", and the industry urgently needs to find new growth points.

02 coffee market prospect is considerable

According to the statistics of prospective research institute, from 2013 to 2023, China's per capita coffee consumption is expected to increase by 238%. The investment analysis and prospect forecast report of China's coffee industry from 2017 to 2021 shows that China's coffee consumption is growing rapidly by 15% - 20% per year, much higher than the global average growth rate of 2%.

Compared with milk tea, "life sustaining energy water" makes coffee more "addictive" and richer "scenes". In the past two years, coffee has been "a bright money scene". Therefore, the coffee of tea is expected to become the next outlet.

In the first nine months of 2021, VC invested more than 5.6 billion in the coffee market, and manner, seesaw, m stand, three and a half tons and other brands received huge financing. Ruixing is the most significant indicator. It was forced to withdraw from the market due to financial fraud and was once "looked down" by the media. However, the hot coffee market just helped Ruixing "land safely" and "make an overall profit" in the second quarter of this year.

03 coffee can be used as a supplement to diversification

With regard to the beverage base, the tea brand has been developing and innovating. It is constantly exploring dairy products, tea varieties and fruit types. From the raw coconut in the fire to the small fruit oil Citrus in Chaoshan, the space to be excavated is getting smaller and smaller. Therefore, it is a natural trend to use coffee as a supplement to the diversification of products in the store.

Of course, tea brands love to toss, and naturally they will not let go of coffee. Tea brands are more delicious and interesting in the presentation and R & D of coffee products.

Like to use raw coconut and thick milk instead of traditional milk coffee, such as the raw Coconut Coffee series of tea; More is to make flavor fruit coffee, such as Naixue Yuyou Mandarin American style, grape cold extract coffee, etc.

Future trend of coffee drinks: return to essence

Under the trend of consumption classification, the coffee market is constantly changing. Consumers' expectations for coffee have changed from the initial cultural symbols and anti trap necessities to daily drinks. The trend of coffee tea drinking will also have more and more coffee tastes, so that new consumers who don't drink coffee often fall in love with coffee faster.

This means that returning to the essence of coffee and making coffee better seems to be a way to educate consumers at a lower cost. Take a very simple example. When young people go to Starbucks, they basically don't drink American "bitter" coffee, but choose better products such as latte and Matcha.

In any case, coffee is an excellent category. Just on the route, coffee chooses to "be a friend of time", while milk tea chooses coffee to be a "lifelong opponent".

Based on this, ihce Guangzhou International Hotel and Catering Industry Expo will land in Guangzhou Poly World Trade Expo from May 14 to 16, 2022.

In this exhibition, ihce will bring you rich products and strong supply chain resources, including coffee drinks, as well as a coffee drinks competition. Here, it may help you find the coffee market you want to know. You can't miss it~

Ihce coffee drink competition

Source: internal reference of catering boss, 36 krypton, I dark horse, Internet