Taipei Times (TT): What prompted Pin Shiang Tea Co Ltd (品香茶業), a wholesale tea company, to establish its own brands in the past few years?
Danny Huang (黃立倫): The family business was in a dire situation when I joined in 2007. At that time, our sales were plunging because of changes in Taiwanese drinking habits, which accounted for between 60 percent and 70 percent of Pin Shiang’s annual production of 17 tonnes of tea leaves. Coffee, handmade drinks and bottled teas have gradually trumped tea as people’s beverage of choice. On the other hand, the local industry has continued to face excessive supply due to rising imports of lower-end tea leaves from Vietnam, even though Taiwan produced 20,000 to 30,000 tonnes of fine tea leaves last year. In view of the changes in local culture, I believed Pin Shiang needed to find a new way of thinking about fine Taiwanese tea and decided to establish two brands — Tasteful Tea (細品香茗) in 2008 and Daebete (茶米茶) in 2013 — to proactively communicate with consumers.
TT: What are the differences between the two brands?
Photo: Lauly Li, Taipei Times
Huang: The pricing and marketing strategies are different. Prices for Tasteful Tea start from NT$3,000 per catty (600g), because the leaves are picked from superior-grade gardens and the production volume is rather limited due to weather and geographic conditions. We have targeted the expensive gift market and consumers who enjoy drinking high-quality Taiwanese tea.
However, we have put more resources into the Daebete brand in the past four years and collaborated with local designers to produce packages that express “youth,” “energy” and “environmental friendliness.” They are priced between NT$26.66 and NT$68 per bag — a higher price than Lipton’s black tea which sells at less than NT$2 per bag, as we want to focus on consumers who pursue a higher lifestyle standard and appreciate a cup of tea that is above the market average.
TT: How are Tasteful Tea and Daebete doing so far?
Huang: Tasteful Tea’s business is stable, with an annual production of 20,000 tonnes, or 12 percent of our total, thanks to the persistent demand in the high-end gift markets in China and Taiwan. Our investments in Daebete also started to pay off about two years ago, with the brand’s popularity gaining more ground in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong. In the meantime, we have brought Daebete to Japan, have started to provide products to a South Korean coffee chain and approached the Malaysian market through a partnership with a high-end retail store there. So far, our annual production of Daebete products is 12 tonnes, more than 70 percent of the company’s total.
TT: Do you have plans to go beyond the Asian market?
Huang: Yes. We have been preparing to enter the European and US markets. Pin Shiang has a total of 7 hectares of tea gardens in Taiwan that specifically abide by EU regulations for growing tea, and the leaves from our gardens have zero-tolerance for residuals. In October last year, we participated in SIAL Paris — the world’s largest food exhibition — for the first time and received positive feedback. The European market has a growing interest in traditional Taiwanese tea because of the West’s increasing fondness for Chinese culture, which I believe is an opportunity for Pin Shiang to expand Tasteful Tea’s presence there. I will lead a team to the International Food & Drink Event in London from Sunday to next Wednesday. I hope we can tap into the European market this year with both Tasteful Tea and Daebete.
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
RSS