The Magic of Coffee + Tea Business Model: defeating the decline of the Financial crisis

Information picture. (Photo source: Manager Magazine)

The British fermented the Chinese teapot culture many times

In 2008, Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz introduced tea in Starbucks coffee shops around the world for the first time in order to save the company from the financial crisis. Harvard quickly adopted the business case as a classic. Howard can certainly keep laughing at this innovation, recently announcing a 12% rise in total net income to $2.9 billion in the third quarter of fiscal 2011, with a deliberate mention of china's contribution.

Is the coffee + tea business model really that magical?

Omission of Harvard Tea Case

Let's analyze Starbucks tea. It is mainly divided into two categories, one is Chinese tea, varieties are white peony tea, Oriental beauty oolong tea, Jinxuan oolong tea, Biluochun green tea; the other is exotic tea, mainly Earl Grey tea, Indian black tea, English black tea. Since the average price of these seven teas is 20 yuan per cup, almost the same as the price of classic coffee such as latte and cappuccino, the value of these teas has to be measured.

If we take Biluochun green tea and English black tea as examples respectively, we have found some problems among them:

It seems questionable whether Biluochun sold by Starbucks comes from Dongting, Jiangsu Province, because from ordinary sensory evaluation, Biluochun tea should be smaller and finer. However, Starbucks Biluochun tea packaging bags are more advanced, tea processing is more obvious, but for those who only seek rapid consumption of business people, the environment is more important than tea. Perhaps Howard knows Starbucks isn't targeting old Chinese tea drinkers, just as his coffee isn't sold to professional-grade "old people."

Similar to Biluochun, Starbucks also plays the concept of "super" on English black tea. English black tea has a long history, factions and categories are extremely strict distinction, and Starbucks play, is to unify them, referred to as "English", this is like the Chinese martial arts factions branch, unified called Chinese kungfu, foreigners can never really know the profundity of Chinese martial arts. Perhaps Howard wasn't prepared to play the evangelist of English black tea culture in China, he was just using the tea as a commercial tool. As for whether he wanted to be professional or not, he didn't care. Anyway, the promotion of English black tea culture in China was not an American matter. It should be considered by the British.

Harvard ignored an important cultural core when studying Starbucks "tea case", that is, as a new money-making commodity-tea, Howard has an irreparable defect in strategy. Due to the huge cultural differences between China and foreign countries, Howard tries to blur the cultural separation between Chinese tea and English tea. Throughout the world's commercial enterprises, no one can successfully mix, Coca-Cola can only focus on black tea drinks, in the green tea field is struggling, while the local Master Kong occupies half of the green tea field, but in the black tea field is very difficult to make achievements.

What kind of generation gap exists between Chinese tea and English tea? The distant past was brought up again.

Catherine's dowry tea

In 1662, Britain, which had been stuck on an isolated island in the English Channel, prepared to carry out a maritime strategy, but met with the resistance of the powerful maritime overlord Holland at that time. England did not want to fight alone, so she sought an alliance with Portugal, which was a common enemy, and thus there was the marriage of Charles II of England and Catherine of Portugal. But the interest was not in how friendly the two peoples were, but in Catherine's dowry.

Catherine arrived in England with several dowry ships laden with tea and sugar. Charles II had hoped Catherine would bring gold and silver, but he hid his disappointment in order to ally himself with Portugal. Of these two gifts, sugar was also an expensive luxury at the time, because Europe was not suitable for growing sugar cane, and sugar could only be purchased from distant Asia. But Charles II wondered what good black tea could do for England, for the English had no idea what tea was.

Catherine told Charles II that tea could cure all diseases. Catherine brought to the British royal family, there are Chinese porcelain and tea bowls that go with black tea.

In fact, Portugal, as the earliest European maritime trade with China, has long transplanted the Chinese tea culture to the country. Whether it is the court of Portugal or the common people, tea is a symbol of status. The British, however, had not yet fully taken the step of Poseidon.

Charles II began to imitate Catherine, making black tea first thing in the morning. As the king and queen set the example, the English aristocracy began to follow suit, and the common people followed the example of the princes and nobles. It is said that cups of unknown "red juice" at banquets held by the British royal family even aroused the curiosity of the French queen and sent spies to infiltrate the palace to know what the red juice was.

The cloud of Chinese tea drifted from Portugal to England, and then returned to France on the European continent. Gradually, it became a treasure that kings, nobles and commoners competed to obtain throughout Europe. However, relying on the distant ocean transportation cycle, how can we avoid supply interruption and at the same time avoid a huge trade surplus between our country and China?

What happened later is recorded in history. The British took the lead in opening the door to China and setting off the Opium War. The British needed to extract more cheap tea, porcelain and silk from China.

English Fermentation of Chinese Tea

To the surprise of the Chinese, a small tea not only caused the Opium War with Britain, but also changed the British way of life.

First of all, talk about the status of Chinese tea in British society. Take the price of Chinese tea in Britain in 1662 as an example. At that time, the annual income of a common family in Britain was about £ 20, but the highest price of tea per pound was sold to £ 10. However, the British, whether noble or common, emphasized decent culture, so almost every British would consume tea, so tea was a luxury in luxury goods at that time. Rich aristocrats could certainly consume, but commoners could drink sorrow.

How Chinese tea changed the British way of life. If princess catherine was the initiator of tea drinking in england, a duchess named annabeth eventually established a way of life for tea culture. She invented the new concept of English afternoon tea. Even today, various business negotiations and business forums still use the "afternoon tea" gimmick. But Duchess Annabeth was only there to pass the dull afternoons.

According to court etiquette, afternoon is the most dismal, all kinds of boring, because there is still some time before dinner, but feel a little hungry, how to do? Duchess Annabeth thought of a way to gather together the noble ladies who were equally bored as she was, and let the maids prepare tea, toast, and butter for a pleasant four-hour afternoon. Unexpectedly, it became a fashion in the aristocratic social circle at that time, socialites and ladies flocked to it, and began to form an afternoon tea atmosphere, which also opened the form of aristocratic afternoon tea etiquette.

However, careful study of British tea, but Chinese habits are very different, British people only drink black tea, do not drink green tea, this is why?

(Editor: Leo)