Regarding the blending of ancient trees, the author is cautious. First of all, blending is based on the same principle, but the reason for emphasizing the blending of ancient trees is that under the current circumstances, ancient tree teas have higher drinking value and higher food quality. Safety has become the mainstream of the market. The blending of ancient tree tea is one of the mainstream ways of making tea at present.
Blending is the unity of science and artistry. Since it is a formula, how to ensure the rationality of the formula is a big problem. Pure material tea is nothing more than a little bit of trouble, go to the recognized famous mountains and villages, under normal craftsmanship, the quality is not bad. Matching is obviously much more complicated. The formula needs to consider a variety of raw materials and the appropriate ratio, which is obviously not suitable for start-up brands.
On the basis of understanding countless benchmark raw materials, a preliminary formula is formed, and then continuously improved. With the in-depth understanding of new raw materials and continuous feedback and improvement from the market, a stable formula is finally formed. It takes at least 3-5 Years, as many as 5-8 years, can form a classic formula. This is a more scientific process of formula formation.
As for the flash of inspiration at certain moments, when some seemingly impossible ingredients are put together to produce a unique taste, this will also happen. But it is more common to have long-term immersion in a formula and continuous thinking before gaining experience. This rather artistic moment may come up, but it shouldn’t be the basic way of thinking about an assemblage.
The purpose of blending
The first point is that blending is a way to make up for the obvious defects of certain teas. For example, some teas have a high fragrance but a thin soup, some teas have a high fragrance but are astringent, some teas are bitter and slow to return to sweetness, and these teas are used rationally to maximize their strengths and avoid their weaknesses, so as to achieve the effect of 1+1>2, which is a blend the goal of.
The second point is that blending is to meet the specific needs of specific markets. An example of a clear customer demand is: under the condition of 200 yuan per cake, the production of ancient tree spring tea has a heavy bitterness and a good aftertaste. In Guangdong, under normal brewing, the foam resistance is about 15 to 20 brews. Under this condition, corresponding products can be produced. For a reasonable market demand, the price must be clarified. The best blend often means the formula with the best effect under the specified cost. Blending without considering cost is not a reasonable brand.
Blending is a brand-new creation
Different from pure ingredients, blending is a kind of innovation; since pure ingredients tea comes from recognized famous mountains and villages, it naturally has a potential customer base; and since blending tea is an innovation, it means a great market risk. To make consumers accept a tea with a distinctive taste, it is much more difficult to promote than pure tea. Pure raw tea, consumers can easily recognize the authenticity and judge the market value; blended tea eliminates the authenticity problem, and also hides the cost. This increases the cost of purchasing decisions for consumers. As a merchant, it is necessary to increase a lot of experience costs and marketing costs.
Uncertainty in the market constitutes a high risk of blending tea. Once the tea blended by the merchant is not recognized by consumers, it will be a large inventory and a possible capital chain break.
High threshold for blending
Many people think that the threshold for blending tea is low, but in fact, the threshold for a good blend is very high. First, accurate cognition based on a huge database of benchmark raw materials. Accurately recognize a few raw materials, then your blending plan will have a narrow range of options, and it will be difficult to achieve the best results.
For example, if you only know about the tea from Brown Mountain, then your blending plan will always be in Brown Mountain, and the style and cost of blended tea are basically locked in a range; Hai and Xishuangbanna, if placed in the entire tea area, the more basic raw materials can be selected, the better blended tea can be expected, and the cost performance will be more prominent. According to rough statistics, there are more than 200 kinds of characteristic mountain tea in Yunnan. Let alone blending, it will take a long time to thoroughly study these 200 kinds of characteristic teas. Therefore, you can start to blend from knowing 3 to 5 kinds of tea, but it is still difficult to achieve the best effect without a long time of serious work.
Second, the accuracy and stability of benchmark raw materials. When researching a blending plan, it is easy for us to squat on the tea mountain and collect fresh leaves to make benchmark Maocha. However, when we completed the matching plan, we found that it was far from the original benchmark plan. The most important reason for this is that the quality of the benchmark raw materials cannot reach the level of the test during large-scale blending. The raw materials provided by the tea farmers or primary producers are quite inconsistent. The principle to solve this problem is to build a primary processing plant and process fresh leaves by yourself. This constitutes another high threshold for blending tea.
Third, huge financial pressure. Tea blending involves raw materials from different tea regions, seasons, and years. The raw material storage cycle is as short as half a year and as long as 3 to 5 years, which requires a backlog of a lot of funds. In the sales process, blended tea requires more promotion costs than pure tea, and the effect may not be obvious. Compared with the natural popularity of pure tea, blended tea requires continuous marketing year after year. The well-known classic tea blends such as 7581 and 7572 in the industry are all brand-name blends accumulated by decades and generations of tea talents, while Banzhang, Iceland, and Xigui have become famous in just a few years. It can be seen.
