Recently discussing how tea vendors use social media led me to consider branding theme issues, what it is that makes some vendors appealing, or to stand out. This is mostly about pu'er vendors, and it does make a difference, related to different tea types being perceived differently, and target audience varying. But this is also just more familiar range to me, and it supports narrower discussion better by just focusing on pu'er, even though the same themes repeat for all types and vendor specializations.
A Reddit comment, in a post discussing starting points for switching from coffee to tea, recommending sheng pu'er vendors, works as a start on this context:
Top vendors for puer tea:
white2tea.com - I'd vouch for anything they sell and their monthly club is also great
essenceoftea.com - totally trustworthy as well, also happens to be #2 candidate for monthly club if you want a second one in addition to W2T
liquidproust.com - great samples and diverse teas
Mr Mopar (reddit user, track him down)
(All of these are 100% trustworthy IMO)
It's always odd not seeing Yunnan Sourcing make such a list; it's probably the main outlet in terms of being known and their total sales volume, both in the US and globally. Maybe not within China but that's a different subject.
Why are these top vendors? They're trustworthy, this person thinks, and they've had good experiences with all of them. They're into tea clubs, and a sample set theme from Liquid Proust is sort of related to that. Mr. Mopar is a tea enthusiast who sells some teas; he's a nice guy, and a good reference, and probably is a reliable and good-value source. He joined one of the online meetup sessions we held awhile back, and has been helpful in answering questions about teas for years prior.
The style or type of all of these vendors is completely different. That kind of contradicts the approach I was initially going to take here, claiming that people probably relate to a certain form of vendor, one who presents their vendor role, ethos, and brand in a certain way that resonates with them. It could instead be that after exploration people cut across such thematic divides to use whatever sources have worked out best, with more focus on the teas they are buying. Or maybe a shared theme, like tea clubs, does link these sources, and only the rest of the form is different.
At any rate I'm going to outline how I see vendor branding and type here, what seems to work for each vendor to communicate to customers that they are a good source, and even more so what else they represent.
To be clear a lot of what I'm communicating about brand themes and the tea versions being sold is hearsay I'm passing on; I'm not a routine customer of a dozen different pu'er vendors. I've bought tea from Yunnan Sourcing, Farmerleaf, and Liquid Proust related to who I'm discussing here, so surely parts about typical offering range, quality levels, and brand themes are either limited or partly wrong. I've been active in discussing tea themes online for a decade, longer than really makes sense to stick with that. Maybe that's partly related to being a main Facebook group moderator, and I guess it also could tie back to tea blogging.
Yunnan Sourcing: the original online broad market source, based around Scott, the owner and founder, working in the Kunming tea market awhile back in the early 2000s. If I remember right they started out as an EBay outlet, and quickly moved to independent website sales, back when that wasn't really so common. Browsing their sales site is like a visit to a large market space, where you will never cover most of what is there; they must sell over 1000 version of teas. They wouldn't be "reliable" in the sense of 1000 (or 2000?) tea versions being consistent; that doesn't match the market theme.
In part growing and building up a customer base as pu'er (and other tea types) awareness and demand also ramped up sets them apart as unique. It's interesting considering what even existed before Yunnan Sourcing, how people bought tea in the very early 2000s. I think local shops played a larger role, and that the specialty tea industry in general was much less developed 20 years ago. Just as individuals only now exploring better tea have trouble knowing where to start entire enthusiast circles were surely a lot less grounded in background experience then.
That part isn't entirely hearsay, or guesswork. We can still go back and read old tea blog posts from 2000, if they're still "up." In one of a series of meetups friends and I met with David Lee Hoffman of The Last Resort and Phoenix Collection, and founder of Silk Road, one of the oldest tea sourcing businesses from the 1990s. His take on tea options and vending in the 1990s could easily be biased or adjusted by later perspective filtering, but a shop manager friend confirmed that there just weren't very many options to buy specialty teas we now see as standard options on a wholesale level in that decade. I'm talking more here about relatively directly sourced endpoint retail vending, but surely that came even later; that's what Scott of Yunnan Sourcing helped develop.
A Facebook Yunnan Sourcing fans group works well for discussion, and brand promotion, but Yunnan Sourcing was a well-established business long before that came up. Youtube videos also made Scott seem relatable, and their product descriptions are generally good, quite clear if a bit short (in product listing versions; the video reviews go into detail).
Altogether it seems like they really know and understand their product scope, which I take to be accurate. I've bought bad versions of tea from them but the proportion that were quite positive was very high, so that reliability carries over to what you purchase. Unless your luck is bad, or you have no idea what you like yet, and then maybe not. It's conceivable that tea scope outside their core (Yunnan versions) could be less reliable, but I wouldn't know.
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a shu version separated out candy-bar style; normal enough now, but quite novel earlier on |
White 2 Tea: It's my understanding that along with Global Tea Hut White 2 Tea initiated the monthly tea subscription theme awhile back, a decade ago or so. It was a good way to bump sales, charging $30 or so back in the day, I think, letting people try unique offerings and feel like they're a part of something, exploring tea without putting lots of review and discussion time in.
Then their product theme ventures into selling blends of different inputs, and a broad range of offerings at different price points, in different styles, along the line of what the owner happens to like. Oddly not including any information about the products worked around controversy or complications with that range; the products are named in abstract ways. So maybe many aren't blends of different materials? Mention of hearsay information about what versions really are come up in online discussion, but the accuracy of those would be hard to evaluate.
Catchy new pressed forms or mixes of product inputs add more novelty. It all seems to work as a counter to the oversold traditional themes approach, making dubious claims based on individuals' authority and tea culture history. For some side-stepping a long (endless) learning curve must be a main positive outcome; if you generally like what they sell you only need to interpret how they describe products, which isn't based on much background description content. They would still pass on some idea of what things are, experienced aspects and such.
It seems possible that not adapting what other vendors present as traditional cultural forms may resonate with many; no Chinese terminology, no one is wearing a robe in marketing content, little discussion of cha qi (but some), no need to memorize production areas and typical types. Teaware and tea drinking are two different things but some other content could imply a degree of buy-in to aesthetic themes, owning gear, emphasis on setting, and elaborate brewing process, and some people might want to stay distanced from all of it, to focus on the tea, without memorizing a broad matrix of background information.
This drifts off topic a little, but it's interesting to consider that selling conventional tea types as something unique makes them unique, as the only place across the entire internet they can be purchased. An example: Jing Mai sheng pu'er often has a bit of a pine flavor aspect, and if a vendor took that and presented and branded it as "Pine Forest" product, not Jing Mai, you could only buy it from them, even if it's common enough. Some people might sort out what it is, but even then if you are selling a good quality, good-value, extra piney version even in that case they might not have any interest in shopping around for a different character or better value version. Maybe most of what White 2 Tea sells really is narrow source origin material, the most common current theme. Some background hearsay accepts they sell a lot of material blends, but that could be wrong. It's not that unusual for typical online discussion to be off the mark.
Essence of Tea: to me this was a clear example of part of that older theme White 2 Tea was reacting against, a traditional style vendor offering clear information about products, selling versions based on curated quality levels and trueness to type claims. Pricing was always on the high side, adjoining an implied or direct claim that the quality level justified that (and the tea probably is good). For White 2 Tea it can be hard to compare pricing to standard market value, since the products are identified as unique and abstract individual offerings.
Maybe it's more accurate to say that White 2 Tea was reacting against other vendors, who tended to come and go, who really leaned into the Tea Master / old plant material version / wild growth / highest quality level / most authentic themes. Essence of Tea draws on some of that, but they're mostly only presenting products as much better than average tea, tied to quality, not so much framed in those other catchy story-oriented ways.
This would be a good place to "name names," and blame a couple of vendors for excessive reliance on those themes, or being caught out lying about them, or at least getting parts wrong, but I'll skip that part here. Vendors sharing authentic interest in parts of Chinese or other background cultures can work, but it generally comes to light at some point when those angles are being manipulated instead of genuinely appreciated. Of course there's a grey area between the two, or both can happen at once.
Liquid Proust: Andrew Richardson is basically some guy that got into selling tea, not that the founding of Yunnan Sourcing and White 2 Tea weren't a lot like that (and Crimson Lotus, and Bitterleaf, etc.). He was into making up novel blends at first, Dian Hong French Toast and such, then passed through an aged oolong phase, getting mixed up in pu'er, the main natural end point for tea preference.
He was focused on bringing tea to the masses through sample sets, early on giving those away, I think it was. One is about to come out soon; they're still very value oriented. It's possible to critique the practice by saying that they're just ordinary tea versions, but that's the point, that you can try a half dozen different ordinary, decent sheng versions for very little expense, many aged. You can get started, without going through a learning curve or spending much. Sample sets through other vendors serve a similar purpose, but that tends to cost significantly more, and to not capture the same random sample of standard and unusual offerings.
Now that I think of it I wrote an interview post about Andrew's subsidized sheng sample set theme (the Sheng Olympiad, before that naming dropped out) back in 2017, and we did an online meetup with him in 2022, so together those might capture his perspective transition over 5 years of selling teas.
Is Andrew more reliable than Yunnan Sourcing, White 2 Tea, or Essence of Tea? Hard to say. They're all doing different things. EOT is more of a curator vendor, and they may be the most consistent, selling the most uniformly high quality teas, which comes at the cost of them costing the most (although I've never tried teas from them, so I really wouldn't know; again I'm passing on general hearsay here).
White 2 Tea might be a little all over the map; that ends up getting mixed into the limited information they provide about their teas, that they are exploring or even creating new options. For Yunnan Sourcing selling a thousand or more teas you have to sort it out yourself. Maybe their in-house brands work as a short-cut to narrowing that quite a bit, or buying samples can offset exploration costing hundreds of dollars.
Andrew is sort of curating, just in a different sense. He sells what he likes. This reminds me of an even better regarded modern vendor form and example, Teas We Like, with the theme mentioned right there in the name. I expect what "they" like is pretty consistent, in line with what experienced tea enthusiasts like (I've tried at least one version of what they sell, but if the same tea is from a different source, as in that case, storage input differences can mean the tea from the same production batch wasn't actually the same).
In the past tea blogger reviews and online group discussion would serve as ample background reference, but text blogging is generally finished now. You can check out Mattcha's blog for an example that ran late in ending, or maybe hasn't yet. Just bear in mind that any tea enthusiast, including bloggers, builds up bias towards vendors selling what they happen to like. If your own preferences somehow match very closely you can draw on those opinions directly, but otherwise some sorting is required.
Other branding themes tied to social media marketing:
So we have a website version of a Chinese market, a personal choice and style blended creation outlet, a traditional vendor form, and guy who sells what he likes, passing on his own exploration outcomes. Surely "Mr. Mopar" is close to the last; he literally is a guy selling some of what he has collected over a long time to fund buying even more. What else could work?
I think Crimson Lotus may not be too far from the White 2 Tea case, just more open about what teas actually are, and more centered on a limited style range (drinkable when young sheng and shu pu'er, which the business founder has mentioned in tea podcast discussion before, so that's hearsay from a decent source). They make blends of inputs and surely also sell narrow-origin products, but I have no idea which matches their most standard product theme. I think I've only ever tried one version from them, in a sample set from Liquid Proust, appropriately enough. I've only ever tried one version from Kuura too, an Australian outlet that's more or less an interpretation of White 2 Tea, offering blends that aren't marketed based on what the inputs actually are (or at least they had seemed to be that earlier on).
Farmerleaf is maybe the main brand version I've not mentioned yet, related to general awareness and buzz (or Bitterleaf; I could mention that I'm also skipping them). William, the Farmerleaf founder, ran an earlier vending outlet closer to these other forms earlier on, and became more location-based after moving to China. And marrying a Chinese woman; it's unusual how most of these other vendor cases are structured around that form, I guess except for Andrew, and I don't know the W2T backstory. That helped William to present teas as tied to Jing Mai origins, with lots of source information, so that he could also produce ample video information content about the background and products.
This is a shift from brand-theme (image) to marketing forms though, right? The two end up linking naturally. The type of vendors who passed on second-hand information about old plants, traditional tea styles, and Tea Master inputs could only make that so convincing, based on showing a photo or two and quoting people. If any of it was ever proven to be inaccurate, which kept happening in isolated incidents, it would all come into question. William is there in the videos on-site, talking to people, showing the plants and processing steps. Some of that could still be a little off--what those people say doesn't necessarily have to be true, or the whole truth--but it's quite convincing, and almost all of it matches my understanding based on experience and other source input. That makes exceptions more interesting, but there are already too many tangents here.
The same happens with group forms and communication outlets, beyond Youtube informational videos showing background. Crimson Lotus produces and interesting podcast version, not at all focused on their own products, but learning and feeling a connection to them as a source vendor can go together. Farmerleaf hosts a Discord server, as others must now (Liquid Proust also does), a place for vendor source "fans" to discuss experience, an indirect form of promotion.
For a more traditional form outlet like EOT a tea club fostering connections would also seem to make sense. They have a website blog section; that's traditional. In their About Us section essentially every paragraph mentions their focus on selling good tea, a good summary point for a curator vendor. Their tea club description probably works as a general summary of what those tend to be about, how they can go beyond selling some samples on a monthly basis:
As with our web store, the tea club has a focus mainly on Puerh tea, but also features Liu Bao, Wuyi Yancha and other interesting teas. We try to make it enjoyable and educational, with exclusive pressings, comparison tastings & small batch teas. There are also discounts for club members on featured teas and special promotions.
Other themes:
What else is even possible? Wouldn't there be a way to reach out to younger people, to combine tea and technology themes, or to couple tea interest with other social sub-themes? Not so much, for a few reasons. Let's start with an exception though, of a new type of communication or social networking channel. Tea apps tend to replicate what other forms of groups had been doing for awhile, with Steepster and Tea Chat standing out as main earlier examples. Adding a timer or notes function could seem different, but those don't change much, since there are plenty of ways to time infusions or take notes.
I've ran across discussion of three tea apps under development, and I've written about one in this blog, but as far as I know only one experiences significant uptake, with that one shifting from function themes and networking onto also selling tea.
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Steepster still exists, but it's quiet now |
Tea interest and potential customer base is still narrow enough that vendors would need to keep focus on that shared interest, and could branch further into source variations, or outlet character themes, but they would have to avoid filtering potential audience, eliminating appeal to broad ranges.
Global Tea Hut had sort of did that, by mixing the Eastern religion and "progressive" perspective themes, but they never really were a conventional vendor, limiting sales to their subscriptions, as I understood it. Branding would always involve themes that attract or put off potential customers, but for tea vendors it would seem best to not have that point towards a narrow target group. I suppose that could still work, if targeting and reach was effective enough, if that group was big enough or enough of them bought in.
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Moychay, a Russian vendor, maybe their equivalent of Yunnan Sourcing, successfully combines interest in tea itself with aesthetic interest in teaware and specific forms of tea drinking spaces, and to some extent with "Eastern" perspectives. I think this works better for them related to the intersection between Russian cultural perspective and tea, or more generally to Eastern or Asian themes. They include tea tasting areas in stores and run "tea clubs," not all that close to a Western cafe, I suppose hard to describe in theme.
To back up a bit I'm in Asia right now, having lived in Thailand for most of the past 16 years, only not being here for 4 or 5 months over the past year (and I've visited essentially all of the main producer countries, except India and Nepal). Does Thailand seem generally Asian, as people might interpret abstract Asian culture themes? Sure, or maybe of course not, depending on what someone would mean by that. It's absurd to narrow cultural patterns down to one broad strand of mixed themes like that.
So what is Moychay tapping into, related to Asian culture, that may or may not be authentic? Do people sit on cushions on the floor and use low tables, and use bamboo matting or soft and warm natural colors for background? Are the elaborate Gong Fu equipment set-ups something any significant number of Chinese people use? Not really, although the first part of all that probably works better in Japan, sitting on the floor. Same for emphasis on wood or rock aesthetic, use of natural building materials. I might add that traditionally people did sit on floors quite a bit more in Thai culture, and made use of outdoor spaces for meals or places to rest, covered patio areas, which later converted to enclosed and more Western indoor AC cooled rooms.
Wooden paneling could come up in lots of places, in a barn in the US, in an old Chinese teahouse, or in design of Thai houses from 50 years ago. It's comforting and pleasant, regardless of how traditional a designed form ends up being. Maybe the style being traditionally grounded doesn't matter as much as there being a consistent and pleasant style. Regardless of theme people need to "get it" and connect with it.
Here in Bangkok a local vendor tried to do something a bit equivalent; Peace Oriental tried to combine general Asian forms into one non-distinct aesthetic style, selling a range of traditional teas. To me it ended up being pretty close to a modern adjusted form of Japanese aesthetic. I'd rather have tea in a garden than in a wood paneled or off-white walled space, and at home instead of in a shop, so it's not relevant to me. It's my impression that such local businesses generally end up selling flavored, sweetened take-away tea versions to draw on better overlap with current local demand.
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I think the first Peace Oriental shop iteration; this is the place I visited |
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later location aesthetics may have evolved a bit |
A Westerner might wonder, why use "oriental," a term now rejected in the West as negative in tone? Political correctness doesn't have the same reach and influence in Thailand. They're not going to go out and rename a bunch of hotels and spas--and tea shops--because some progressive Americans cancel a word.
Unique vendor themes, support by content
What if a vendor had already established sales of good, basic, well above average quality teas through an online outlet; what could they draw from all of this, or what could they add to a brand theme or story to support that range of options? It would really depend on what they value. I like that EOT keeps it simple; they sell "good tea" (and they probably really do). Or that Andrew sells what he likes and finds interesting. And that Yunnan Sourcing makes a broad range available to customers, not narrowing that in any helpful way for them, adding work to their selection process, instead offering a crowded market as a unique resource form. All these approaches are their own thing, based on communicating what the vendors are about.
The other parts and background that can be added, about sourcing themes, organic teas, valuing traditional styles, or non-traditional styles (those blends, different pressed shapes); all can condense into brand theme patterns. Something simple like cake (bing) wrappers can add to that. A tea wrapper should say what the tea is, or else it's confusing, requiring a customer write on them or add another label, but beyond that artwork is arbitrary.
Subscriptions or sample sets are great examples of how to make the same product themes unique, and even more attractive. Discussion group spaces can do the same, adding background and a sense of community without adding anything substantial at all.
Content is something else though, isn't it? With text on the way out and photos vying for attention among millions of Instagram accounts it's now down to video. In a way this is ideal, because the personal perspective connection comes across best in this medium. Who is William of Farmerleaf, or Sergey of Moychay? They're right there in their Youtube videos, telling you what is interesting to them, and what they value. William is a tea geek and Sergey is into Asian culture (Chinese, mostly); if that resonates with you maybe their teas will too, or the opposite influence could occur. Don Mei of Mei Leaf is the most divisive example of this; to some his persona and enthusiasm really sell his teas, and others feel the opposite effect.
Note that very little of what I'm describing relates to anything like a "cult of personality" effect, as Don Mei is drawing on (not necessarily in an entirely bad way; he's personable). Andrew talks about himself quite a bit, maybe more so than the teas, but in general these are all unconventional individuals promoting the teas more than their own charisma-based pitch. Paul of White 2 Tea has shared his own perspective in a tea blog but in general he is all but Google-proof, not putting any focus on himself versus the business. It's admirable, to me; that also demonstrates consistency and commitment.
One thing that doesn't seem to work well is keeping it all too generic. 10 years ago having a developed website, broad product selection, decent value, and limited descriptions of products was enough. That was already a theme. Now there are hundreds of similar tea outlets in different places. Offering just a few catchy products can go much further, something that seems unique and attractive, mixing product brand themes, uniqueness, and tie-in to general branding.
I suppose the industry can thank White 2 Tea for helping develop that, for positioning a lot of what they sell in such a way, even without the same degree of product descriptions. Back at the beginning that comment on Reddit said about them "I'd vouch for anything they sell." Can it even work that way, that everything one vendor sells can match well with any set of preferences? Not really, but one customer's likes can match unusually well with one vendor's sense of taste. Or bias could also enter in; if you think you'll love every single tea you try under some circumstances some just seeming ok could still spin as more positive.
People are also inclined to sort themselves into teams in all sorts of odd ways now, in many cases related to liking certain product ranges, or owning certain things. If you like wearing a Japanese robe or martial arts clothing why shouldn't your tea vendor look like that too.
This must be a main factor in how branding now resonates with customers, right? Do the expressed values align? Two vendors with very different look and feel, brand images, could sell identical teas and they could be perceived much differently related to that context. Value gets folded into that; in some cases selling good quality tea at good value is a main selling point. Now it's even more common for extensive claims of exclusivity to seem to be supported by high price points, almost more than the opposite, the quality justifying cost. Those two things aren't necessarily complete opposites, quality and value, since some teas selling for over $1 a gram can still be a great value, but to some extent they can be.
Related to video content, a vendor presenting content in an aesthetic backdrop might charge significantly more than a Westerner wearing normal clothes in a normal room. Sometimes the tea would be better in the first case, but it's also possible that it might not be as good. Again a half dozen examples come to mind related to this very thing happening, to the hype just being hype.
Do people seem to tend to get it all sorted out, trying different tea sources and teas, eventually "seeing through" these less supported claims and context additions? Yes and no. Vendors have definitely faded from prominence for weighting brand themes over what they actually deliver, and not offering great quality or value, but even most of those are still around. In the long run I think vendors who really walk the walk fare better, but the few exceptions where the opposite is true are interesting, where it can be broadly understood that a vendor is selling ordinary tea for a poor value based mostly on spin; how can they do it? By mastering branding, and use of social media channels and content development, accepting that customer turnover is a part of that approach.
Disruption of earlier centralized tea discussion--back to Tea Chat, Steepster, and a half dozen main text blogs--limits a narrowing of shared interest that had occurred before. There are still a couple of dozen main vendors that come to mind, or come up in discussion, as respected and high quality sources, but the field seems more open than ever for well-developed, novel sales approaches. Standard modern marketing might work better than ever now, using Google and Facebook ads to get the word out.
Building a large Tik Tok following might be enough, even though that's an especially odd example. A more standard path is probably what Farmerleaf did; start as a conventional source, add in more of a narrow theme (regional tie-in, source-type related, or other), develop content and social media marketing channels, move from sales based on value to much higher price points and focus on quality over time, and put a face on all of it through a main founder image and backstory. If you can get that to resonate with one or more specific customer types or groups all the better.
Can a brand or source skip all that and put all of the focus on tea (as White 2 Tea isn't actually doing; not using a standard approach can still be a theme)? Maybe. Have you ever heard of Trident Cafe and Booksellers? Probably not, but they source the best possible tea, and go really light on any form of brand-image or broad online promotion. I would imagine their sales volume would be double or triple where it currently stands if they had taken up a couple of these approaches, putting more of a face on their business, letting online content communicate who they are, expanding reach through social media exposure, giving people more to go on for self-identification connection. Maybe taking a longer path and letting the tea remain the focus is positive; all the image themes only go so far.
As I read back through this maybe one critical distinction isn't really clear: a divide between background information and stories or imagery tied to cultural context. William of Farmerleaf is showing how tea is grown and processed in videos, talking to farmers or people who make the tea. That's different than emphasis on ceremonial brewing practices, aesthetic teaware or elaborate trays and tables, or historical or mythological stories. Each could seem attractive to different people, or some people wouldn't care about either. For sure all tea was made from very specific plant types (even if it was several), grown in one or more micro-climates, and processed according to a number of steps, so the difference here is that you can either value or ignore all the background that made your tea into what it is in the end.
What I'm seeing as the main central theme here is that as long as a vendor can communicate their own genuine, developed tea appreciation forms that can resonate with some others, just not everyone. Examples come to mind of people (vendor sources) "tapping into" both sets of ideas and themes entirely for marketing purposes instead of communicating their own experience and interest, to actual production background and other parts that can be added. It always ends up seeming a bit thin, watered down, in comparison with what is presented by more genuine and experienced enthusiasts and vendors. They're trying to copy something. In common cases they're literally copying content and images, the equivalent of a high school kid using AI, Wikipedia, or image search to fill in what they should've actually researched on their own. It's not hard to spot.
To be absolutely and completely clear I'm not blaming anyone I mentioned here for any of that; I think they all did the exact opposite. Even Don Mei is communicating a slightly exaggerated version of his own experiences, and mixing valuable and functional background information in along with sales pitch. He doesn't push culture-based aspects; historical stories barely enter in, and he advocates use of simple brewing approaches. These other vendors I don't intend to critique even to that limited degree (the reference to some exaggeration in descriptions).
I think they all communicate their own genuine interest in tea, in different forms, and it works, it really comes across. Surely product uniqueness, consistency, pricing mark-ups, and final value varies for all of them, maybe even within their own range, but sorting all that out is part of the fun of exploring pu'er.
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