How Steam Tea Borrows From Coffee Brewing Methods

SMILEY, an international IP with a 50-year history, has entered the tea beverage sector through its brand SMILEY tea, which opened its first global store in Beijing Chaoyang Joy City, expected to open on October 1. The brand focuses on original leaf steam tea, using a coffee-like extraction method, with a product line covering lattes, hand-brewed tea, milk tea, alcoholic blends, and ice cream at mid-range prices.

Steam tea means placing tea leaves in a filter cup and passing steam through them from bottom to top, which presses out a tea soup with a sweet taste, full aroma, and smooth texture. It is a modern brewing method gaining ground in central and other regions. The brand targets consumers born in the 1990s to 1995s, and whether its IP traffic advantage can hold up still needs market testing.

The internationally renowned IP SMILEY, with a 50-year history, has officially entered the tea beverage sector. Its brand SMILEY tea has opened its first global store in Beijing Chaoyang Joy City, expected to open on October 1. The brand focuses on original leaf steam tea, using a coffee-like extraction method to make tea, with a product line covering lattes, hand-brewed tea, milk tea, alcoholic special blends, and ice cream, positioned at mid-range prices and targeting consumers born in the 1990s to 1995s. Amid fierce competition in the tea beverage industry and the normalization of IP collaborations, whether SMILEY tea can establish itself with its inherent IP traffic advantage still needs market testing. This article also brings coffee knowledge exchange and Front Street Coffee's specialty bean recommendations.

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The tea beverage sector has welcomed a new player with inherent attention. According to Beijing Business Today, a tea shop named SMILEY tea has recently appeared in Beijing Chaoyang Joy City, not yet open. The store's hoarding reads: "Under the 50th anniversary international IP SMILEY, the new-style tea brand SMILEY tea lands in Beijing, China, with the global first store about to open."

Beijing Business Today learned that SMILEY tea has obtained authorization for the SMILEY IP and belongs to the tea beverage brand under this IP. The national first store is planned to officially open on October 1. The marketing head of SMILEY tea introduced that compared to common tea brands on the market, SMILEY tea's differentiation lies in its focus on original leaf steam tea, which draws on Western coffee-making methods to make tea. Core products include lattes, hand-brewed tea, milk tea, as well as special tea drinks with alcohol elements and ice cream.

The so-called steam tea refers to extracting freshly brewed tea with steam: placing tea leaves in a filter cup, then boiling the tea, allowing steam to quickly pass through the tea leaves from bottom to top. The pressed tea soup has a sweet taste, full aroma, and smooth texture. This is a modern new method of brewing tea, currently popular in central and northern Taiwan, and first appeared at the 2005 Taipei International Food Show.

The brand head also revealed that SMILEY tea will adopt mid-range market pricing, with the target customer group mainly young people born in the 1990s to 1995s. After the opening of the first store in Chaoyang Joy City, the brand will also prepare for a second store in Beijing, expected to open at the end of the year or early next year.

Although the store has not yet opened, an ordering mini-program named SMILEY tea has already launched, and the store list shows this store.

The "yellow smiley face" that has swept the world for half a century is about to appear on milk tea and coffee cups, which is expected to drive a wave of photo-check-in trends. Public information shows that SMILEY was born in 1974, when France was in the context of the social crisis of "May Storm," and the overall social atmosphere was depressed. To help people quickly escape psychological gloom, French journalist Franklin Loufrani first proposed the concept of "Smile France" in France Soir and established The Smiley Company for licensing business. Today, The Smiley Company has continuously crossed borders through licensing and has ranked among the world's top 100 licensors.

As an internationally renowned brand with the purpose of spreading happiness, SMILEY has launched various products, integrating the optimistic and positive smile image into every corner of people's lives—it has been made into balloons, stickers, and printed on T-shirts and socks. Under the joint promotion of many international brands, this classic smiley pattern quickly spread globally and has now become one of the most recognizable symbols in the world.

Facing fierce competition in the tea beverage market, brands like Heytea and Nayuki Tea have previously tried to gain traffic through popular IPs and achieved good results. The approach of the new brand SMILEY tea seems reasonable.

The tea beverage industry never lacks new entrants, and collaborating with popular IPs to monetize traffic is no longer new in the tea industry. During the hit TV series "Love Between Fairy and Devil," Nayuki Tea "took advantage" of the IP collaboration with Love Between Fairy and Devil. Related drinks sold tens of thousands of cups within 8 minutes of launch, and related topics had over 200 million views.

At the beginning of this month, Heytea's collaboration with the open-world adventure game "Genshin Impact" was also very popular. This collaboration was divided into online and offline channels. The online event officially started at 12 noon on September 5. In less than an hour, players snapped up the first batch of online stock, and the products directly became "pre-sale" status.

Although SMILEY tea enters with traffic, for a new tea brand, this also means facing direct competition with brands that have already deeply cultivated the industry. For SMILEY tea, it is still a considerable test. In terms of brand development, collaborating with SMILEY IP authorization can certainly bring some traffic, but there are also risks. The key is to focus on the product itself, continuously innovate on the basis of good products. Innovation ability and profitability are the core of whether it can continue.

Image source: Internet

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