---
title: "A 'C-Position Killer' Arrives in Convenience Store Coolers"
description: "As summer approaches, 'Chinese-style health waters' are increasingly appearing alongside unsweetened tea in convenience store coolers, with 23 brands launching 59 new products in the past year. While the category is still small compared to unsweetened tea, its rapid growth and the entry of major players suggest it could become the 'next unsweetened tea'."
author: "DT商业观察"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-06-09"
categories: "Retail Formats"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/a-c-position-killer-arrives-in-convenience-store-coolers-9f8a1d77/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/a-c-position-killer-arrives-in-convenience-store-coolers-9f8a1d77.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/3vvZ5qLAGzOaf8t1pFklfw"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E4%BE%BF%E5%88%A9%E5%BA%97%E5%86%B0%E6%9F%9C-%E6%9D%A5%E4%BA%86%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%AA-c%E4%BD%8D%E6%9D%80%E6%89%8B-9f8a1d77.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/a-c-position-killer-arrives-in-convenience-store-coolers-9f8a1d77/"
citation: "DT商业观察. “A 'C-Position Killer' Arrives in Convenience Store Coolers.” New Distribution, 2025-06-09. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/a-c-position-killer-arrives-in-convenience-store-coolers-9f8a1d77/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# A 'C-Position Killer' Arrives in Convenience Store Coolers

> As summer approaches, 'Chinese-style health waters' are increasingly appearing alongside unsweetened tea in convenience store coolers, with 23 brands launching 59 new products in the past year. While the category is still small compared to unsweetened tea, its rapid growth and the entry of major players suggest it could become the 'next unsweetened tea'.

**Source**丨DT Business Observation
As summer quietly arrives, office workers' staple beverages have gained a "new favorite."
Walking into convenience store coolers, the "king" unsweetened tea is now accompanied by more and more "Chinese-style health waters."
Moreover, reports on "Chinese-style health waters" are increasing online. MaShangYing shared at the FBIF2025 Food & Beverage Innovation Forum that this category has performed remarkably well within the beverage category, and many media outlets have called Chinese-style health water the "next unsweetened tea."
Can Chinese-style health water (hereinafter "health water") become the "next unsweetened tea"? How far has it developed? The author aims to explore this from a data perspective.

**In the past year, 23 brands launched 59 new health water products, more than unsweetened tea launches**
**Currently, there is no clear classification or definition for health water on the market.**
In the industry, "Chinese-style health water" generally refers to ready-to-drink beverages made from traditional Chinese ingredients that do not require brewing or boiling, such as red bean barley water, goji berry tangerine peel water, and corn silk water. In beverage industry classification, they fall under "plant beverages." If tracing the earliest "Chinese-style health water" on the market, it may not be the well-known red bean barley water, but rather Laoshan White Flower Snake Grass Water, famous for its unpleasant taste.
Compared with unsweetened tea, what is the current scale of health water? We found two sets of data for reference:
First, according to the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, the market size of Chinese-style health water in 2023 was 450 million yuan, and it is expected to reach 10.8 billion yuan by 2028. In comparison, according to Nielsen data, the market size of unsweetened tea exceeded 10 billion yuan in 2023.
Second, according to MaShangYing data, from Q2 2024 to Q1 2025, unsweetened tea accounted for approximately 2-5% of the overall beverage category, while plant beverages (including Chinese-style health water and plant tea beverages, excluding herbal tea and sour plum drinks) maintained a share of roughly 0.5-0.9%.
In terms of scale alone, unsweetened tea is currently 5 to 10 times larger than Chinese-style health water.

**Despite the small scale, many brands have entered the Chinese-style health water market and launched new products in the past year.** Before 2023, there were few entrants in this space, with representative products including KeYang's red bean barley water and Yizhenggen's ginseng water.
In 2023, Genki Forest launched Genki Forest Zizai Shui, including red bean barley water, red date goji berry water, and refreshing mung bean water. In 2024, Zizai Shui sales exceeded 1 billion yuan, single-handedly popularizing the health water track.
From the second half of 2024 to now, brands have flocked to health water.
Platforms such as Hema, Sam's Club, Dingdong Maicai, and JD Seven Fresh are selling other brands' health water while quietly launching their own private-label products.
Uni-President and Master Kong, two beverage giants, almost simultaneously launched health waters to "compete on the same stage": Master Kong with "Juemingzi Barley Drink" and Uni-President with "Tiankong Barley Drink" and "Juemingzi Drink."
Moreover, some brands are cross-industry entering health water. Bishan Village, primarily a craft beer brand, launched jasmine barley water, Pu'er black bean water, and kale cucumber water this year. In May, Hema announced a collaboration with traditional Chinese medicine company Li Liangji to launch Wu Zhi Yin and Shu Qing Yuan Qi Shui, continuing to iterate its private-label health water products.
Brands are entering in droves, and new products are arriving one after another.
According to the author's incomplete statistics, from June 2024 to late May 2025, at least 23 brands launched 59 new health water products with 49 flavors. In comparison, 2023, called the "first year of unsweetened tea," saw 18 brands launch 25 new unsweetened tea products with 36 flavors.
With so many new products on the market, what is new about them? What are the emerging trends?

**Popular health water ingredients: barley ranks first, astragalus and tangerine peel rise**
Just as unsweetened tea launches like to compete on "tea leaves," from oolong, Pu'er, Dahongpao to West Lake Longjing, Phoenix Dancong, Jin Junmei... health water launches also first play with ingredients.
To identify changes, we manually counted ingredients of health water new products from August 2024 to now (May 2025) and compared them with those before August 2024.
Overall, health water ingredients have become more diverse, with more traditional Chinese medicinal herbs added.
From the birth of the first red bean barley water in 2018 to August 2024, over about 7 years, health water new products used only 24 ingredients in total, with red bean + barley as the main combination. Almost every brand making health water has a red bean barley water.
From August 2024 to now, in less than a year, health water new products have used 42 ingredients.
Among them, barley remains the most frequently used ingredient, but pairings go beyond red bean, including jasmine + barley, lemon + barley, and five-finger fig + barley.
In addition to well-known Chinese herbs like astragalus, tangerine peel, and cassia seed, some niche health ingredients have also appeared in health waters, such as hovenia, purple corn, cogongrass, and flaxseed...
In terms of growth trends, five ingredients have risen notably: astragalus, tangerine peel, cassia seed, apple, and five-finger fig.
Astragalus is a recent mini-hit element, corresponding to apple astragalus water, red date astragalus water, and Huanfang rose astragalus water. Tangerine peel was previously used in tangerine peel goji berry water; this year its pairings have become richer—Panpan and Yili have nine-processed tangerine peel water, Chengde Lulu has tangerine peel plum drink, and Chaxiaokai has tangerine peel hawthorn water. Cassia seed corresponds to products like cassia seed barley drink, black rice cassia seed, and cassia seed beverage.
These three elements are all "traditional Chinese medicinal materials," and corresponding products often promote "medicine and food homology," making consumers feel "healthy" and "nourishing."
Apple and five-finger fig, along with newly emerged ingredients like water chestnut and bamboo sugarcane (a type of sugarcane), are naturally sweet, providing nutrients and improving palatability. For example, bamboo sugarcane cogongrass water tastes like a pure "little sweet water" substitute.
This is similar to unsweetened tea launches: past flavor innovations often used fruit or floral notes to offset the bitterness of tea leaves. Health water is the same—Chinese herbs may be beneficial, but most taste bitter or astringent and have unpleasant aromas.
However, not every product balances health and taste well. The "new darling" of health water in the past year—apple astragalus water—is a product that sells well but has controversial taste.
In traditional Chinese medicine theory, astragalus has the effect of tonifying qi and nourishing blood, and both apple and astragalus have the effect of moistening the lungs and stopping coughs. But currently, apple astragalus waters from various brands have average palatability.
At the end of last year, Hema launched apple astragalus water, which was once called "vicious" by netizens due to its unique taste, becoming famous for being "so bad it's good." @Xiaohe said that last winter, when he told a friend his throat was uncomfortable, the friend recommended he try apple astragalus water, citing the astragalus content, "and whether it works or not, the taste is so peculiar it's worth trying."
Despite this, brands like Sam's Club, Hema, Bieyang Bubble, Qingshang, Douding Diary, and Xiaosu Xiansheng have made it a main push for autumn/winter and spring. Hema's apple astragalus water ranks in the top 3 of plant beverages in its channels, and the apple astragalus water co-launched by Sam's Club and Panpan's sub-brand Sanfang Siji sells over 50,000 units per month.

**All are "water substitutes": health water costs 0.4-1 yuan more per bottle than unsweetened tea**
Who exactly is drinking Chinese-style health water, with its variety and not necessarily pleasant taste?
Combining interviews with brands and some office workers & college students, we found that regular health water drinkers mainly fall into two categories:
One category consists of consumers who need a "water substitute."
These people don't want to drink plain water; they want flavored and healthy water, overlapping with unsweetened tea consumers. @Chuanfu, Hema's常温 food R&D procurement, said that strictly speaking, unsweetened tea and health water users overlap because both are health-oriented, and unsweetened tea also has a water-substitute concept. The difference is that unsweetened tea's core is "sugar-free," while health water adds a functional concept on top of being sugar-free.
Hema's fig flaxseed water launched in May this year is positioned as "light health water," meaning a "water substitute" with a little flavor and a little function, targeting "young women who want to nourish estrogen, supplement estrogen, and tonify qi."
However, if drinking beverages as water, besides taste, price may be the most influential factor for repurchase. We compared prices of health water and unsweetened tea and found that when buying by the case online, health water costs about 0.4 yuan more per bottle than unsweetened tea; offline, health water costs about 1 yuan more per bottle, or even more.
Taking Genki Forest Zizai Shui and Nongfu Spring's Oriental Leaf as examples, the former is 52.9 yuan for 500ml*12 bottles on Taobao, about 4.41 yuan per bottle, while the latter is 60 yuan for 500ml*15 bottles, 4 yuan per bottle.
At Shanghai FamilyMart, Genki Zizai Shui is 6.5 yuan per 500ml, FamilyMart's own brand Jishang is 6.5 yuan but only 350ml, while Oriental Leaf and Suntory unsweetened teas are 500ml per bottle, priced at 6.5 yuan and 5.5 yuan respectively.
Another category of consumers buys health water for expected efficacy, such as removing dampness, strengthening the spleen, or nourishing the stomach... These consumers may compromise on taste for efficacy, with the most typical example being the audience of the "ancient health water" Laoshan White Flower Snake Grass Water—middle-aged men who value its hangover-relieving and stomach-nourishing effects.
However, efficacy is a double-edged sword. @Xiaojiang said that when seeing different Chinese-style health waters on the market, he is curious about the content of "active ingredients" from these Chinese herbs in a bottle. If the content is high, he is unsure whether he can drink it daily, "since drinking Chinese medicine requires following medical advice"; if the content is low, he suspects it might be like birch sap, which, despite the health claim, mainly serves to replenish water.

**Final Thoughts**
Once, Oriental Leaf waited 10 years for the unsweetened tea boom. Now, KeYang, which sold red bean barley water since 2018, has waited for the rise of Chinese-style health water.
However, the development of Chinese-style health water still faces many challenges.
Besides product homogeneity and taste acceptance, distribution is also a challenge.
After all, in the beverage industry, distribution is king. Currently, Chinese-style health water's distribution and sales are far behind unsweetened tea.
Moreover, with beverage giants (like Master Kong, Uni-President, and Suntory) and retail brands (like Hema) entering, they have obvious distribution advantages. Even me-too products can quickly grab a share of the Chinese-style health water market.
If we reference the development of unsweetened tea, by 2024 the market was largely divided among giants: Nongfu Spring had 69% share, Suntory 12%, Master Kong 3.88%, and fourth-place Guozishule, a new brand, broke through via convenience store channels.
In the future, whether the health water track can produce the next "Guozishule" remains to be seen.

**🔺Scan QR code for ticket inquiries🔺**


---

## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: DT商业观察
- Published: 2025-06-09
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/a-c-position-killer-arrives-in-convenience-store-coolers-9f8a1d77/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/3vvZ5qLAGzOaf8t1pFklfw

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671