Seattle-based chain of coffee shops, Starbucks, is seen to revive the lost tea culture in China and with a younger and more hip approach.
Tea drinking is famous in China and is preferred more than drinking coffee. However, Starbucks has been a success.
Starbucks China entered the country in 1999 and as of May 2016, the company has established 2,100 stores in 120 cities. By 2019, Starbucks plans to have 3,400 stores.
The success of Starbucks in China is due to the reinvention of tea flavors such as black tea with ruby grapefruit and honey and green tea with aloe and prickly pear. The company then started offering traditional tea flavors such as English breakfast tea and green tea.
In China, traditional tea drinking takes place in sidewalks and among old people playing mahjong. Starbucks repositioned tea drinking as more westernized and sophisticated and targeted to the second-generation or G2, that has more sophisticated taste.
According to a report by McKinsey, "These G2 consumers today are typically teenagers and people in their early 20s, born after the mid-1980s and raised in a period of relative abundance. Their parents, who lived through years of shortage, focused primarily on building economic security."
The report added "But many G2 consumers were born after Deng Xiaoping's visit to the southern region the beginning of a new era of economic reform and of China's opening up to the world. They are confident, independent-minded, and determined to display that independence through their consumption."
Starbucks's expansion in China will open up a new trend in tea drinking that is not for the traditional tea drinker, according to an expert.
"Starbucks isn't aiming at traditional tea drinkers, but people open to new experiences," says Matthew Crabbe, managing director at consultancy Mintel.