the mission of every company is to solve some problem; same for us!
I was in IT industry for long before making teas; that was the publicly listed company for NB, VGA & MB, and so on, and our key competitors are also the biggest ones, few from TW and few from US, depending on product categories. All competitions including marketing, pricing, sales, promotions and others were actually based on one thing: trust based on the traceable transparency.
For example, 15” FHD NB with Core i5, 4G Mem, 512G SSD & VGA integrated has its market price, which is higher than the NB with lower spec, vice versa. Above the market price are subjects of qualities and warrantee period, then the brand premier is on the top. But in general, you know what you pay for, and the expectation is linear and clear. As to marketing, each brand tried hard to create something different (BIOS, capacitor, PCB, tailor-made for certain users, etc) out from those “most of the same” hardware. Some approaches worked and some not; nevertheless, it’s an honest and transparent business.
What to do when the costs, prices & names are not matched?
When being back to tea industry, I was shocked by what I saw. TW has its glorious period in domestic market in 1990s and even higher peak in 2000s in CN market, but the marketing and pricing were uncertainly chaotic and confusing, and the same mess fully extended to global market (or perhaps worse due to the language barrier).
For example, the same name of Dongding oolong, why prices can differ by times? Teas from Lishan or Dayuling are the better than other teas, so in terms of what? Why prices and outlooks of teas from Lishan or Dayuling can differ by times? And there are many more puzzles such as roasting, regions, picking method and names as a curtain in front since oolong making process is the most sophisticated one amongst all 6 categories of teas.
On the other hand, people have been very familiar with black teas and its related handling processes, of which is the knowledge systematically and widely spread in English for hundred years, thus the same concepts have been naturally adapted to comprehend oolong teas; though it actually leads to further confusions and misunderstandings.
go beyond Inertial thinking
TW tea industry has been long time in a close loop where producers were not selling abroad (a few have been starting in recent years) while exporting brokers didn’t have much production related knowledge. Thus, TW oolong teas have been sold to the world based on many mislead information and a few communications.
in addition, educating potential buyers by providing brand new comprehensive structures about a niche tea would take a lot of efforts yet results weren’t promising at all, thus it has been skipped by sellers as a time wasting issue instead of an investment (though it’s so crucial and necessary). As a results, correct understanding about TW teas such as judging criteria (probably the most important subject), pricing (should be the 2nd biggest concerns for buyers), sustainability, fair trade and many others is not much available for people who are interested in specialty teas.
so, here we are!
TW tea making is more like an arts; no SOP, mostly based on understanding of the traditional skills and concepts behind in order to improvise in each batch. Whatever processes can make do in tea making as long as the end result is right, which means the rich aromas, pleasantly layers of tastes and smoothly lingering textures. And our goal is to present TW teas in a systematic way to give readers a correct, compete and useful framework that help them to evaluate TW teas by all contents in our sites and on our social media, and hopefully it can bring the industry into a transparent level with sufficient communications.
Trilliant Industry 