This isRoundtable. Changhui County in southwest China's Sichuan province is known as the Jadsming Capital ofChina, but in recent weeks is in the news for the supply of Gardini flowers whose prices have at least tripled from their normallevels.
The sharp increase in the price of the fragrant flowers is driven by the country's beverageindustry.
Hello, I'm Laming and this isRoundtable.
Today with NewHoling and BrightonYates, we look at the fierce competition in tea drinks and where that might lead to the consumer'spreferences.
So ChanghuiCounty, a small town where it is knownfor,well, Jadsmingtea.
Jadsming is avery, very popular teadrink.
Definitely. I drink it everyday.
Jadsming.Well, I'm pretty sure it'sJadsming.
Someone told me it was Jadsmingtea, but I've been looking for green tea products that haven't been really able to find that come in a bottle as opposed to having to brew the teayourself.
Butyeah, I think Jadsming tea has similar qualities to green tea in terms of healthbenefits, butyeah, I drink Jadsming tea everyday.
Technicallyspeaking, Jadsming tea is a type of greentea.
It's just flower-centered or fragrant kind of greentea.
So it has similar properties to the general greentea.
Yeah. Depending on the level of the quality of the product youbuy, the top quality Jadsmingtea, they're essentiallytea.
Right. Whereas the lower standard or lower quality Jadsmingtea, notnecessarily.
Imean, you'll see Jadsming flowers floating inthere.
Oh,okay. And forme, I have actually personally tried Gardini tea flavoredlatte.
And also Gardini plus pear flavoredtea.
Soyes, I am the living example of how are these new tea industry or market is gettingvery, veryattractive.
I don't think I've ever tasted the flavor of Gardini oreven, I don't think I'm even familiar with what a Gardini smellslike.
It has got this very distinct smell that once you smell itonce, you would not forget theflavor.
And also because I don't know if it'strue, but apparently over50% of the flavor has something to do with the smell aswell.
So if you smell the very nice smell of abanana, then the banana tastessweeter.
It's a combination of chemical reaction in yourbrain.
And the idea is that with this Gardini taste and this Gardinismell, you would find the drink you're enjoying muchbetter.
Oh,interesting. So it's like a flavor enhancer and also quite attractive initself.
And Gardini is oftentimes relatedto, I'm not sure if I'm correct bysaying, to sense of romanticism because there is alyric.
There's a very popular song and in the lyricis, there's a line that says Gardiniflowers.
And so teenagers are pretty much intothis.
And definitely thisyear, the market price for Gardini flowers in Qianhui Countyskyrocketed, reaching a staggering 35 yuan per 500grams.
That'slike $5?Yes. So it's basicallylike, basically $1 for 100 grams at itspeak.
It's unprecedentedprice,surge, left many local farmers in disbelief as the normal pricerange.
Yes, in previous years was only three to five yuan per 500grams, which occasionally can spike to 10yuan.
So basically it's three times theprice.
And if you're massivejump.
Yes. And for some time in someperiod, it's even five times theprice.
And that is why a lot of farmersdecided,well, actually they decided that it would bevery, veryhappy.
But they're not really sure whether or not this price can stay like that for the following years because we talked about Qianhui being the capital ofJasmine.
And Jasmine flower has brought them the bread on the table for quite a longtime.
And they do not want to chase over this new lady and discardingJasmine.
Soyeah, that's that's athing.
Interesting. I'm not saying they're uprooting the Jasmine plants just to try and plant moreGardini.
I hope that's not not what they're doing because really given the trend that we've seen in the tea industry over the past fewyears, we know that the trend neverstays.
Yeah. There's very few that are very long lasting andsustainable.
I suppose there'slike,yeah, I suppose over theyears, theyare, youknow, every a couple of years a new flower or a new taste or whatever that becomes popular for a certain amount oftime.
And I think it is definitely advisable for these farmers to strike while the ions hot and try and figure out how to keep thisbubble, youknow, inflated to do bubbles and keep it's bubbled for as long as possible until that bubblebursts.
But it's also quite a difficult thing to manage like youmentioned, youknow, in terms of still keeping the focus on what has been successful for you for a long period oftime, forexample,Jasmine, while also taking full advantage of this newtrending, youknow, Gardini acraze.
Well, the good thing is the Gardini andJasmine, they grow in differentseasons.
So they cancontinue, they can coexist and still extend the profit stream for the Chen Wei County if they keepgoing.
Yes. Because in terms of harvestingtime, the flowering period of Gardini is mainly from April toJune, while the peak blooming period for Chen Wei Jasmine is from July toSeptember.
Soyeah, this timing perfectly fills the gap in Jasmine's floweringperiod, making the twocomplimentary.
And that's only the situation for Gardini and Jasmine and we're talking about a bigger picture here that is China's new teamarket.
We're calling it new tea because tea has been a traditional drink for Chinese people for over a thousand years and we lovetea.
We love the different types oftea.
Do you know different type would talk about this on Chinese tea dayactually?
Different types of tea are generated from the same types ofplant.
It's onlythe... I didn't know this until I came toChina.
I always thought every type of tea was just associated with differentplants.
No,no,no, it's the sameplant, but the processing of making different tea are different and the taste can bedifferent.
Actually, the function when it comes to different nutrition and also health benefits can bedifferent.
Nevertheless, tea has beenthere, has been there for Chinese people for a really long time and it's not only Chinese peopleactually.
We did a little survey on our social media platform asking about our followers favorite tea drink and here are some really interestinganswers.
We've got the old-fashioned pull R.T forsure.
We've got whitetea.Yes, we've got whitetea, greentea.
Then you get to see green jasmine tea and you seeR.O.T.
Ginger lemon honey tea mint with honey tea and we have roiboss.
Roiboss.Yes, from SouthAfrica.
Yes, with cinnamon andhoney.
Is that how you doit?Indeed.
Cool. And that also has plenty of really great health properties andyeah, it's oneof...
It's probably one of South Africa's most famousexports.
Roi bosstea. We love tea in differentplaces.
We love tea in differentlanguages.
It's red bushtea. Redbush.
Redbush,yeah. And also when it comes to how to drinktea, we have people with different rituals andhabits.
You have people wanting to have tea with rocksugar, serve with claypot.
Apparently, that's athing.
The English also get very touchy about this sort ofthing.
So there's a huge debate in England whether they put in the water before the milk or the milk before the water and there's heated debates aboutthis.
Superimportant.Yeah.
They get really worked up aboutit.
And also if we're talking about coldtea, people are using it to accompany their dessert or as a fancydrink.
And I've seen multiple bubble tea as people's favorite tea choice and also flower tea and green tea latte with leechyjelly.
Imean, I haven't tried this but I would definitely tryit.
Again, green tea latte with leechyjelly.
It soundstasty. It's asnack.
It's asnack. It's asnack.
And it'sfunny. And ofcourse, jasmine tea comes up multiple times on the list and milk tea is a lot of people'sfavorite.
Soyes, definitely a lot of people are enjoying tea not in a traditional senseanymore.
The main reason I drink tea personally is not necessarily for flavor ortaste.
It's for healthbenefits.
So that's why I've always kind of leaned more towards green tea because there is just the kind of global perception that green tea is the healthiest tea that you candrink.
But I'd love to find out if there are actually other forms of tea that may offer greater benefits than greentea.
I'm not sosure. You don't look like someone who's at age who would drink tea for a very health conscioustea.
Itry.Yes, youare. But for those of us who enjoy the flavor and scent oftea.
There's so manyoptions.
And these years is kind of like our heaven of different flavor of tea because these tea drink companies and brands are trying really hard to bring different types of flavor to bring different flowers as well as fruit and different blend of differentingredients.
I think it's having an impact on the coffee industry aswell.
Oh,yeah. I think there's a lot of different tea varieties that are making their way into the coffee industry and benefiting that industry aswell.
Yes. That is why we're calling it a new teamarket.
One we're talking about the new teamarket.
We're talking about the kind of tea that's blended with different types of fruit and flower and even special design in thepackage.
Sometimes even alcohol and other liquid added toit.
Yeah. Are introduced in thisdrama.
Yes,definitely. But this all seems to mostly be linked to smells andflavors.
It doesn't seem to be that much of an emphasis on the health-beneficial qualities of these differentvarieties.
No, they're essentiallybeverages.
Imean,yeah. They're quite surprising because I think a lot of these tea varieties do offer a lot of health benefits that aren't necessarily getting that much attention as opposed to the flavors that theyoffer.
If you look into it and if you visit for example Guangdong aswell, I actually think there are some of these shops in Beijing aswell, they introduce traditional Chinese medicine as an ingredient in the teadrinks, in the new teadrinks.
That's something I would be interestedin.
Exactly. Soyes, there are different varieties and different innovations in the new teaindustry.
And going back a little bit to the Gardiniya ingredient and Gardiniya crazeeven.
We're going back there because it has actually infected localpeoples, in fact in a goodway.
Imean, improved localpeoples' likelihood as wellas...
It's infected theirbrains.
Gardiniya craze coming atyou.
Well, that has infected mybrain.
I am craving for aGardiniya,Jasmine, Gardiniya lattecurrently.
But definitely the craze where Gardiniya flowers is driven by the booming of new tea drink trend in China and it is influencing localfarmers' livelihood currently in a goodway.
Sure. And all of this growth is safe to say driven by the fierce competition in the teaindustry.
This all happened since a few years back where we saw a number of companies mostly originally from southern China because that's where you grow tealeaves.
Andso,like,Nashia, the tea and the haytea, so a number of influential brands reallybecome...
I think they branded themselves over theinternet.
They really took advantage of the characteristic of theinternet.
You try to make a name of yourself on social media and try to introduce certain elements that would track youngpeople.
That's where businesses are built thesedays.
If you don't have a social media presence or if you're not able to grab the attention of youngconsumers, it's very difficult to emerge as a company orbrand.
Yes. Andso, for these differentbrands, the first step is to find out the Gardiniya flower as a good ingredient in developing new scent and new types of tea and then giving them really goodnames.
Forexample, we haveGumings' Cloud Mist Gardiniya Green as a name for one type of milktea.
Yes, veryslick. Ithink, andalso, when it comes toNashia, thechild, Imean, has mentioned to theirname, is Ultra-Alpha Gardiniya GreenMelon, making it a little bitoverwhelming, in away.
Andalso, we have anothername, SummerGardiniya.
It does not sound thatfancy, but inChinese,true.
Yeah, I found the pronunciation quitepretty,elegant.
But dedicated toSummer.
Yes. It's apun. And there's myfavorite, Oriental GardiniyaDawn.
I think it's a very beautifulname.
And these beautiful names actually attract people'sattention.
Yeah.So, if you're only looking for a certaindrink, why not pick the one with the most beautifulnames?
I think packaging and colors and that sort of thing also has a great impact on people's productchoices.
So, you'll probably find a lot of these tea companies also make efforts to create the most eye-catching and appealing beverageboxes.
And that sort of thing to make their product moreappealing.
Forexample, in SouthAfrica, I generally find that when a new product becomespopular, it's not necessarily got to do with the taste or the flavor or the cost or the healthbenefits, it's normally got to do with the way that it looks and the way that itfeels.
So I think in thatsense, with regards tomarketing,yes, naming a product is very important and creating a buzz on socialmedia.
But another way to create a buzz on social media or just in general marketing is to create eye-catching packaging for theseproducts.
Yes. And from the productionend, if those of you who are listening who happen to own a place as an owner farmland in your house andthinking,huh,Gardiniya, sounds like a lucrativebusiness.
I should grow some Gardiniya and sell them at the price of $5 per 500grams.
Hold your horse just for now becauseactually, takingaway, forexample, has become known as the hometown or capital of Jasmine in China for goodreason.
It's due to the specific environmental conditions required for Jasminegrowth.
Incontrast, Gardiniya's have lower planting requirements and are easier to manage and harvest in a certainway.
Andconsequently, Gardiniya's have gained popularity among villagers in recentyears.
Yet for those villagers who are planting Gardiniya's in their Jasminefields, they might gradually facing out some Jasmineplants.
That's the situation for the Jasmine farmers to startwith.
And when we talk about the Qianwei County being the capital of Jasmine inChina, it has also lead to a situation where local as well as adjacent industries as well as factories are able to produce Jasmine tea onsite.
So it is a very relatively complete and comprehensive supplychain.
Exactly. And that is why jumping into thisbusiness, just because you're listening to theirshow, it's probably not going to be a really goodidea.
The best advice to give to other companies or regions that might have the best conditions for some other sort of plant orflower, whatever it maybe, is to identify what your specialist product is and then come up with a way to make it as marketable as possible to compete with Gardiniya and be the nextcraze.
So that would be the advice I would say from myenders.
Don't try and compete with the currentcraze.
Try and come up with the nextcraze.
Right.Also, the competition of more new tea companies in this country is not limited only to the kind of ingredients they put intothere, but also the kind of smell they're able togenerate.
And I'm referring to the kind of practice of creating or recreating the smell that you get from famous puffyumes like British pear andphrasia, areport.
Yeah, that happenstoo.
One of the flavors that certain companies were pushingto, youknow, to rebind people that they're not only getting tea drinks and also the healthbenefits, they're also getting theexperience, the feel and also the sense that they are livingit.
And when it comes tobranding, I also have one example I just have to share because it's just very creative and it touches my heart in a specialway.
There's this series of four seasons kind ofcoffee.
So you've got theFucheng, which isTienfu, that isChengdu, the city ofChengdu, Sichuanprovince.
You've got the Fucheng white macknoliacoffee.
You've got the WestLake, whichis...
Hangzhou.Yes. West Lake Royal Longjingcoffee.
You've got the Chengcheng DeepValley, Tian Hongcoffee, that'sYunnan.
And also the Tibetan Plateau Snow Lotuscoffee, that's XiZhang.
They're representingspring,summer, autumn andwinter.
And they're representing the most beautiful and distinctive places here inChina.
And you've got all theelements, the names arebeautiful, the products areattracting.
And also there's this little touch of culturalelement.
There's too many optionsnow.
Just going to open to a coffee or tea shop and say give me acoffee, give me atea.
And then they say choose between our 10,000 flavorvariants.
And the interesting thing is this competition and this innovation in the Chinese market is not only limited to the Chinesemarket.
Infact, it's spelled over to international markets aswell.
Yes. In theUS, as affected by the preferences and favors of overseas students fromChina, a lot of the tea beveragescompanies, they are in a positionto...
to innovate as well because oftentimes the overseas Chinese students will compare the products to the drinks that they get when before they move to theUS.
And atsuch, they now have toinnovate.
And then they are actually using TikTok and Instagram to these social media platforms to promote their innovation aswell.
The US has also historically been pretty good at cross-productpromotions, which is also something that is seemingly becoming quite popular in China aswell.
We've seen a lot of cross-primotional opportunities with a variety ofbrands, which we've also seen a little bit up until this point with certain coffee and tea brands aswell.
You're listening to Roundtable coming upnext, MotivationalMonday.
Motivational Monday's Welcome back to a Supercharged MotivationalMonday.
I didn't know you did that voiceover.
That'samazing. I didn't dothat.
Iknow.Right. So who is going to be gettingfirst?
I'll gofirst. Euro 2024 craze is happening all over the world right now as that competition isongoing.
And I have a quote here from one of football's biggeststars, LucaModritch, who has always been one of those players that I think early on in his career was kind of underrated and went on to achieve much greater success than anybody could have possiblyimagined, including being voted one of the greatest players in theworld, when he won the Ballon d'Oraward, he won multiple Champions Leaguetitles, multiple leaguetitles,etc.,etc.
And also famously took his Croatiateam, which was not very highly favored at the last World Cup all the way to the final if I'm notmistaken.
He's also one of the oldest competing players at this year's Euro2024.
Soyeah, it's been quite a story book career for LucaModritch.
And hesaid, I always believed in myself and in my qualities even when othersdidn't.
And I think that's a very strong message for anybody out there that really has a goal or vision and wants to do something with theirlife.
Even if others put you down and don't share the same beliefs in your abilities or your goals or your dreams that youdo, don't let that deteryou.
Stayfocused, believe inyourself.
And if you truly believe in yourself and what you canoffer, that's all thatmatters.
And you can determine how far you go with that dream or thatbelief.
That's wellsaid. And infact, I think you're holding a knife and benefit from thisquote.
And both of us are going through a lot of challenges trying to organize in the event in southernChina, in South EastChina, for Joeprovince, for Jim province in for Joecity.
And I think oftentimes I've heard people aroundme, both my family and evenmyself, questioning is it really worthit?
Imean, putting all the efforts trying to make itwork.
But I think at the end of theday, you have to hold on to something and that is to believing yourself and believe that you can make ithappen, despite of all the challenges and challenges that are working againstus.
Definitely. And you can think about the last time you face a difficultsituation.
It might have been a tough project atwork, like what I'm facingcurrently, a personal setback or even a physicalchallenge.
At themoment, it feltoverwhelming, but you bit the bullet and youpersevered.
Reflecting on thatexperience, you can see how it made you stronger and moreresilient.
And that comes to my motivational Mondaytoday, thatis, the struggle you're in today is developing the strength you need fortomorrow.
So don't giveup. And this quote reminds me that every challenge is an opportunity togrow.
So whenever you face astruggle, remember that it's shaping you into a stronger version ofyourself.
Keep pushing forward and don't giveup.
And if you think you've done allthat, you've put your utmost effort andyour, if I already triedreally, reallyhard, here comes the second part of myquote.
Itsays, when you giveourselves, when we give ourselves permission tofail, we at the same time give ourselves permission toexcel.
If you've tried really hard towards thisgoal, if you feel like you've given all youcan, and it is time for you to take apause, both believe in yourself and also say toyourself, it's okay if I cannot get it thistime.
It'sokay. I'm stillgrowing.
I'm being a better version ofmyself.
Andone, I have led that pressure away and letit, let itgo, let itout.
I am actually giving myself permission toexcel.
I can actually be actually achieve that goal in a higher percentage ofcomplicity.
And sometimes external factors can really affect how certain scenarios play out foryou.
The main thing is that if you know in your heart that you gave100%, and youknow, did you're absolutely best to do or achieve something at the end of theday, whatever that results leadsto, that's all that matters is that you gave yourbest.
Yes, I think people aredifferent.
The reason I picked these two quotes is actually because for some people pressure is theirmotivation, is their drivingforce.
When they are facing a lot ofpressure, they can performbetter.
But for those who feel that setting a high expectations for themselves and would lead to the fear offailure, which would even hope themback, then maybe it's not the best idea and the best decision to say that I cannotfail, I have to work harder and harder and harder because I cannot accept failure because sometimes being able to accept failure is alsoimportant.
And by accepting that failure is part of theprocess, we can become more willing to takerisks, try newthings, and ultimately excel in ourendeavors.
So I guess I'm trying to shout out to those ofyou.
Remember, excellence is not aboutperfection, it's about giving your besteffort, learning from mistakes and continuouslyimproving.
For those of you who may feel afraid or jittery before taking on a hugetask,remember, both New Healing and I were aware of the difficulties and challenges that we were steppinginto, but nonetheless we were fully confident that we were ableto, we would be able to conquer all thechallenges.
Again, despite allthat, Imean, we have to admit that we are walking into something that is so challenging that it's something that we never thought we will have to encounter and put ourselvesinto.
And assuch, it's avery, very richexperience.
We've so far learned a lot about organizing anevent, but we also have learned a lot about ourselves aswell.
Imean, some of the weaknesses and flaws that we previously alreadyhad, but we weren't awareof.
Now, we are pretty much aware and then the next step is trying to fix them goingforward.
And my quote thisweek, let me just quickly finish it and this is related to the first topic we mentioned talkedabout.
And that is when it comes to developingcharacters,strengths, insecurity and unique personal and interpersonal talents and skills in achild.
No institution can or ever well compare with or effectively substitute for the home's potential for positiveinfluence.
This is from StephenColvey, American educator andauthor.
Ithought, although I'm repeatingmyself, I thought this is reallyimportant.
I couldn't stress thisenough.
So here itgoes.Now, that's all the time we have for today's discussion androundtable.
