Our 2022 champion of sourcing: bubble tea ingredients.
Chun Shui Tang bubble tea
Here we are, the end of 2022. It’s been a fun year with lots of ongoing issues happening in the world. We have experienced Russian-Ukrainian War in the beginning of the year, ongoing inflation and Lift interest rates. Covid is finally taking a break but economy is taking a hit.
In this year, we noticed that people have stopped purchasing houses, cars, lands, because the interest rate is much higher than the previous years. The market is slowly withdrawing all the ‘free money’. BUT, people still have got to eat and drink, the food and beverage markets are not having much impact, not as much as others. The beverage market is still growing, and is not going to be down anytime soon.
In 2022, we have completed a few sourcing projects for the most popular item- bubble tea ingredients from Taiwan. That sounds a lot more interesting than it looks, we predicted that with Covid and inflation, people may not want to invest money on opening a new bubble tea shop, or creating a bubble tea brand. It turns out that people are actually thinking about it in regard to post-pandemic world.
Where did bubble tea come from?
In Taiwan, there are two bubble tea shops that claim they discovered the original bubble tea. Click here to read more about the story. Chun Shui Tang tea room (Chinese: 春水堂人文茶館) and Hanlin Tea Room(Chinese: 翰林茶館) . They are both great tea shops and have the most classic flavor of bubble tea. Nowadays, we can taste all kinds of different bubble tea flavors, as well as toppings thanks to the original founders. Bubble tea has become a daily drink in most of Asian countries, due to the easy access of ingredients, it has spread faster and wider. It’s a rapidly growing market with no doubts. Now, let’s take a look and see how big the market could be?
Is bubble tea market growing year by year? Yes!
We begin to realize that bubble tea is super addictive, and the market is attracting a lot of people especially in some countries, where tea is very easily accessed.
This year, we have completed bubble tea ingredient sourcing in the UK and Vietnam, both of the countries have tea productions and are very familiar with the tea market. Bubble tea is a production and a variant of tea leaf, but it gains more attention than original black and green tea.
Why do people source bubble tea ingredients directly from Taiwan?
We know that there are plenty of distributors in the local markets, they supply all kinds of bubble tea ingredients. But why do people come to us and look for ingredients? There are only two factors- price and quality.
Price is an inevitable factor in this matter, it’s surely cheaper to purchase from the origin when it comes to BULK orders. Although it will not be as fast as purchasing from local supply due to the long travel time. When customers consider lowering the prices in order to stock up, sourcing from the origin is a good solution.
Now quality, we have heard of customers complaining about bad quality when they buy from their local distributors. Food ingredients are difficult to manage because they all have expiry dates, most of distributors tend to purchase a lot of items and sell from the inventory. Especially for bubble(tapioca), the expiry date is sometimes much shorter than syrup or powder. When there is no control over food expiry date and quality, customers would consider source from Taiwan directly.
Thanks to our customers, by working with them, we get to know the preferences of bubble tea in different regions and countries. Believe us, sometimes we are not even aware of the ingredients until they mention to us.
The forms of bubble tea business
We used to think that bubble tea is meant to be a ‘physical shop’ with staffs and a huge sign.
Nowadays, the new forms of bubble tea business have reshaped our idea. Because of Covid, people spend more time at home, drink and eat at home. How do we maintain the business but also reserve the same taste for bubble?
As we know, bubble can not be stored overnight, it only lives for today, not for tomorrow. Therefore, people invent ‘instant bubble kit’, it allows you to buy the bubbles and save them for tomorrow or next week. It’s such a brilliant idea with more business opportunities. Although, the taste is not as awesome as freshly made bubble tea, but it does allow us to drink and enjoy bubble tea anytime. It’s still trendy to sell instant bubble kit to people who want to enjoy bubble tea anytime and anywhere. We’ve completed a project for a client in the UK and successfully helped them create their own instant bubble kit recipe and packaging, it’s been fun and knowledgeable to learn the difference compared to traditional bubble tea market. Most of the instant bubble tea purchases are done through online stores or super markets, it means we no longer have to drive all the way to the appointed bubble tea shop to get one cup of bubble tea. It is likely to boost the sale of bubbles and make bubble tea more common in our daily lives.
Renewing the suppliers’ mindset
Traditional bubble tea suppliers are generally more conservative. Inventing a new recipe or launching a new product requires a lot of resources, such as R&D, quality control, certifications. Do not forget, bubble tea ingredients are categorized as ‘food’. When it comes to food, certifications are required, such as FSSC22000、ISO22000、Halal. While working with our suppliers, we have noticed that they are also catching up and launching their products along with the fast-paced trend. They are more willing to try or understand ingredients that are not common or popular in Taiwan, in order to adapt to the oversea markets, they adjust their recipes and change the formulas.
We are very happy to see that they embrace the new world of bubble tea business, the new flavors and customer preferences. It’s super exciting to see the new chapter of bubble tea business and the reform in the supplier chain.
Share your bubble tea story with us or find a new flavor through us!
Ask Taiwan, your dependable sourcing and business partner in Taiwan
Reference:
- https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/bubble-tea-market-101564
- https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/bubble-tea-market
- https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/09/28/2524216/0/en/Demand-for-Global-Bubble-Tea-Market-Size-to-Hit-4-5-Billion-by-2026-Exhibit-a-CAGR-of-8-1-Bubble-Tea-Industry-Trends-Share-Value-Analysis-Forecast-Report-by-Facts-Factors.html