What is matcha coffee, and what is Nongfu Spring launching?

Nongfu Spring is re-entering bottled milk tea after eight years. On October 12 its official WeChat account announced a renewed Da Nai Cha line in jasmine, black tea, and oolong flavors, each 380 milliliters, marketed with no added milk powder, tea powder, or flavors. Pre-sale on JD.com is 135 yuan for 15 bottles, stored and shipped under cold chain.

The company first launched a matcha-flavored Da Nai Cha in a tumbler shape in late 2013, which faded after a lukewarm response. The ready-to-drink segment now competes with street drinks and instant powdered options, and brands such as Genki Forest and Hankou Erchang are also entering. Whether the relaunch wins consumers still depends on the market.

After eight years, Nongfu Spring is once again making a push into the bottled milk tea sector. On October 12, its official WeChat account published a post announcing a renewed layout for the "Da Nai Cha" series, launching jasmine, black tea, and oolong flavors, with a net content of 380 milliliters, highlighting selling points such as "0 added milk powder," "0 added tea powder," and "0 added flavors." It is reported that this series uses concentrated milk and carefully selected original leaf extraction, with cold chain storage and transportation throughout, and the pre-sale price on JD.com is 135 yuan for 15 bottles. Looking back to the end of 2013, Nongfu Spring had launched a matcha-flavored Da Nai Cha in a tumbler shape, which faded out after a lukewarm market response. Now, bottled ready-to-drink milk tea is seen as a new trend, with the trillion-yuan milk tea market divided among street drinks, instant powdered drinks, and ready-to-drink options, and new brands like Genki Forest and Hankou Erchang are also entering the fray. Front Street Coffee believes that whether Nongfu Spring can win consumer favor this time remains to be tested by the market.

On the afternoon of October 12, Nongfu Spring, which started with bottled water, pushed an article titled "Your Imagination of Autumn Is Missing a Bottle of Da Nai Cha" on its official WeChat account, officially announcing a renewed layout for the "Da Nai Cha" product line.

According to public information, the new "Da Nai Cha" products launched by Nongfu Spring include jasmine, black tea, and oolong flavors, with a single bottle net content of 380 milliliters, and they are now on sale.

In terms of product positioning, Nongfu Spring focuses on the concept of "0 added milk powder." According to its WeChat account explanation, "0 added milk powder, with all milk sourced from cow's milk" constitutes one of the core selling points of the Da Nai Cha series.

Nongfu Spring further explained: "Da Nai Cha uses concentrated milk formed by pasteurizing fresh milk and dehydrating it through membrane processing, without adding milk powder. After concentration, the milk is frozen and transported and stored under cold chain throughout."

The selection of tea raw materials also underwent a strict screening process.

Nongfu Spring selected three high-quality black tea/oolong tea/jasmine green tea from thousands of teas for original leaf extraction, with 0 added tea powder and 0 added flavors during the tea-making process.

In terms of price, the pre-sale link on Nongfu Spring's official JD.com store shows: the "Da Nai Cha" series is priced at 135 yuan for a 15-bottle pack.

Based on Nongfu Spring's statements, the Da Nai Cha series uses a low-sugar formula and features 0 trans fatty acids, 0 added non-dairy creamer, and 0 added preservatives.

A background note is needed here: as mentioned earlier, Nongfu Spring is "re"laying out Da Nai Cha, and the emphasis on "re" is because as early as the end of 2013, Nongfu Spring had already launched the "Da Nai Cha" series. At that time, the product had a tumbler-like appearance, with matcha flavor as the main highlight and a capacity of 320g. However, according to relevant information, the product did not win widespread market recognition after its launch and ultimately fizzled out.

Now, eight years later, Nongfu Spring is once again betting on Da Nai Cha, and some industry insiders analyze that this may be because bottled milk tea is becoming a new market trend.

According to data from a previous "2020 New-Style Tea Beverage White Paper" report: the scale of China's milk tea market has reached 100 billion yuan.

From the perspective of milk tea category forms, the current milk tea market is mainly divided into three types, namely street drinks, instant powdered milk tea, and ready-to-drink milk tea.

Among them, street drinks have the highest consumer popularity; in the instant powdered milk tea sector, Xiangpiaopiao dominates; in ready-to-drink milk tea, common brands include dairy beverage brands represented by Wahaha and Yili, but a final market landscape has not yet formed.

Currently, emerging internet brands such as Genki Forest and Hankou Erchang have also launched bottled ready-to-drink milk tea product lines, and Nongfu Spring may be eyeing the new trend of bottled milk tea aimed at the high demand from young consumers.

Finally, whether consumers are willing to pay for it, we might as well wait and see.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.