This summer, looking around the office, there are always a few desks with large bottles of unsweetened tea around 1L. In gyms, you often see 900mL bottles of Oriental Leaf or Alien. But just three or four years ago, in slightly more formal settings, holding a 1L bottle of Master Kong would get you teased, "Why are you such a loser?" Now it's become "Three yuan is for face, four yuan is for life." Using different sizes for different scenarios has long been industry practice. Many large-portion snacks and drinks are labeled as "share packs" to indicate that the packaging size is designed for multi-person scenarios, such as regular potato chips at 30g or 40g, share packs at 210g, and 1.25L or 2.5L bottles of cola, Sprite, and Minute Maid, common at banquets. When you do the math, large packages are significantly cheaper per unit than small ones. However, even with the price advantage, not all large products sell well. The 1L drink is one example. Due to its "not too big, not too small" capacity, it's awkward for one person and stingy for multiple people, leading to mixed reviews. Until a few years ago, few brands made this size a sales focus, except for a few standout products. But this is changing. Not only are brands launching 1L bottles, but consumers are also embracing them. According to Nielsen's March report "2024 China Beverage Industry Trends and Outlook," the sales share of the 600-1249ml specification across all specifications grew from 6.4% in 2019 to 11.3% in 2023. Certain categories show more pronounced changes, especially unsweetened tea. According to statistics from MaxWin Brand CT, using 650ml as the dividing line for sales of large and small specifications, from August 2023 to July 2024, the sales share of large specifications grew from about 20% to about 35%, nearly doubling. Among these, products above 650ml are mainly concentrated between 900ml and 1L. This means that for certain categories, 1L bottles have become a hot commodity. Why this change? Who "popularized" the 1L bottle? Can all beverages benefit from this size market? Drinking Big Bottles: Wanting Health and Flavor, and Saving Money Because of the "second item for 2 yuan" promotion, editor Xing Zhi from Daofa recently often buys the 970ml jasmine Longjing from Guozishule. He doesn't have a water cup and doesn't like the purified water at the company. Drinking unsweetened tea is his daily hydration. The 500ml small bottle of jasmine Longjing sells for 6 yuan; the 970ml large bottle sells for 9 yuan, with the second bottle for an additional 2 yuan, making it 5.5 yuan per bottle, cheaper than the small bottle and nearly double the capacity. Plus, he drinks it at the office, so portability isn't an issue; clearly, the 970ml is more cost-effective. In actual research, many consumers buying 1L or similar sizes are similar to Xing Zhi. They are mostly young people born after 1985 and 1990. They buy big bottles mainly to meet their existing hydration needs while pursuing health without burden and affordable prices. The popular unsweetened or low-sugar tea drinks and electrolyte beverages in recent years are the mainstream choices. Depending on the scenario, their needs can be divided into two categories: one is "water's happy substitute," and the other is "functional and affordable." The former is simply a substitute for water, with unsweetened tea being typical. Although unsweetened and low-sugar tea drinks have a light taste, having flavor is better than plain water, providing a small sense of happiness in drinking water. At the same time, clean ingredients offer the psychological comfort of "health." The latter focuses on specific functional scenarios, such as sports and fitness. Large bottles around 1L just meet hydration needs and are more affordable. One consumer told us he often stocks up on 950ml Alien drinks, drinking them during basketball games, with one bottle just enough for a game. Unlike single-person drinking, multi-person scenarios mainly involve family daily consumption and gatherings of friends and relatives. These cover a wider age range, so there is a higher requirement for taste compatibility. Suitability for the whole family and children's preferences are the main considerations. Compared to purely unsweetened products, juices with clean ingredients and sugary (or low-sugar) tea drinks are more popular. For example, in reviews of the 950ml Tea Pie, a consumer mentioned, "Very good, large bottle, more satisfying to drink, very tasty, and the kids especially like it." Also, in the review section of Qingshang's 245ml fruit juice, you can see comments like "Hope they make a large bottle, the whole family drinks it." Clearly, these needs are not hard to understand, so why are 1L drinks only now becoming popular? How did this "not too big, not too small" size go from being rejected by both sides to being accepted by both? The reversal is driven by today's consumers who want quality life and also want to save money happily. Even though it has cooled down now, the innovation brought by the new consumption boom has left traces. In 2017, China's Engel coefficient fell below 30% for the first time. This means that the new generation of consumers has increased spending on development and enjoyment items like travel, education, and entertainment, and is more willing to trade money for a better life. Especially after the pandemic, people's attention to health has greatly increased. Seeing the demand, the supply side began to exert effort. Starting with Genki Forest, a host of unsweetened and sugar-substitute drinks emerged. After the discussion on the safety of sugar substitutes became heated, more natural unsweetened tea became the next target. According to Nielsen IQ's monitoring of seven major beverage categories over the past five years, consumers' choices in beverage categories are undergoing significant changes: surpassing carbonated drinks, ready-to-drink tea has become the number one category in market share. Oriental Leaf, once rated as one of the hardest-to-drink beverages, has finally risen. Data from third-party market research firm MaxWin, monitoring offline retail networks in county-level and above markets, shows that Oriental Leaf's market share began to accelerate, jumping from 8.4% in the second half of 2022 (ranking fourth in the industry) to 21.1% in the third quarter of 2023, becoming the number one unsweetened tea in the domestic market, second only to Master Kong. Besides healthier products, a more rational consumption mentality and the pursuit of cost-effectiveness are another major reason for the popularity of 1L drinks. Under rational consumption, consumption returns to pure usage attributes, while attributes as class and status symbols are weakened. Like the popular Douyin meme "Three yuan is for face, four yuan is for life," in the past, seeing a bulky 1L bottle would evoke an impression of "stingy and petty." At that time, "saving money" was a negative evaluation. Now, saving money has become a new "comparison item" for young people. Unlike the past "swallowing pride to appear rich," today's young people pay more attention to cost-effectiveness and actual value, pursuing the consumption concept of "save where you should, spend where you should," maintaining quality of life while achieving personal value and quality of life improvement through smarter consumption. Meaningful consumption experiences outweigh pure material enjoyment. With money-saving tips, one can even gain tens of thousands of followers on social media and start a second career. In addition, the emergence of food delivery and express delivery has greatly reduced the difficulty of carrying. Even without transportation, young people living alone or away from home can easily satisfy their need to stock up on large bottles by simply opening a food delivery app. It can be said that the resurgence of 1L drinks is both an accident and a necessity of the right time, place, and people. But this also raises new questions: since logistics infrastructure is mature and consumption is becoming rational, making it no longer embarrassing to hold a 1L bottle and chug, can all beverages benefit from the 1L size market? Similar Category Trends Individualized "Channel Brands" The market is the most direct answer. Let's look for answers from the consumer behavior and sales data of e-commerce platforms and retailers. To better match consumer needs, brands often include buyer-sensitive points in product titles. According to Magic Mirror data, in the word cloud and frequency statistics of Tmall product titles filtered by "large capacity," two types of high-frequency words can be seen: category characteristics and usage scenarios. Among them, the top three are "0 sugar," "electrolyte," and "oolong tea," all category characteristics. Also in this category are 0 calorie, vitamins, fruits, etc. In addition, there are high-frequency words pointing to usage scenarios and people, such as sports, hydration, and children's breakfast. Together, they indicate that when buying large bottles, low calories, functional substances, and natural formulas are the main considerations for consumers when screening. If search performance shows consumers' selection logic, sales directly show their actions. Compared to e-commerce platforms with unlimited shelves and traffic dominance, retailers with limited shelves and repeat purchases often pre-screen products to ensure turnover. Therefore, their SKUs and sales conditions, to a certain extent, better reflect mainstream selection tendencies. According to statistics from Xiaoxiang Supermarket, although beverages have become a "premium substitute" for water, not all enlarged beverages bring good sales. Admittedly, a single list has limitations, but it can still extract certain consumption characteristics. By category, large-capacity tea drinks and fruit and vegetable juices around 1L can occupy 3-4 seats in the TOP10 list, while in carbonated drinks, the TOP10 in sales are all small bottles below 600ml, with 8 seats given to even smaller capacities below 330ml, completely opposite to the former. That is to say, even if more affordable, large bottles of carbonated drinks are hard to win consumer love. On one hand, carbonated drinks lose carbon dioxide gas after opening, affecting taste; on the other hand, the acidic substances in carbonated drinks can corrode teeth, and excessive consumption can cause health problems. Unless for family gatherings, the proportion of single or small families considering ultra-large carbonated drinks for daily stockpiling is relatively low. "When I find a soda I like, I usually buy small bottles, but buy several, because if I don't finish it, it goes flat," said Xiaoyu, operations staff at Daofa, indicating that in addition to taste and ingredient characteristics, the ease of preservation after opening and the impact on taste affect purchase decisions. Relative to the commonality of category trends, the brand list has more "channel personality." The 1L drinks on the Xiaoxiang Supermarket list are mainly divided into two types: capacity iterations of mature brand big products, or private-label brands with pure ingredients. In terms of consumer psychology: either choose products that have been verified, with long-term demand, and large packaging is more affordable; or for products like juice, where ingredients are fixed and brand process differences are small, as long as the product is affordable and food safety is guaranteed. Not only Xiaoxiang Supermarket, but many retailers have launched self-developed juice products, combining trends to leverage advantages. For example, Sam's Club, Hema, and ALDI have all launched NFC and compound juices and other juice products, and their sales are at the forefront of their stores. On one hand, compared to room-temperature products, refrigerated, short-shelf-life juices require high inventory turnover; on the other hand, production requires a complete supply chain system and highly cooperative manufacturers. These all place higher demands on shipment volume and strong central management. Through self-developed products, some retailers can also form their own "channel barriers," retaining customers with good quality and low prices. Analyst Comment Whether consumption is upgrading or downgrading has been the focus of industry discussions in the past two years. Pan Ning, CEO of Uniqlo Greater China, once publicly stated, "Under the 'pingti' (affordable substitute) consumption value, consumers no longer choose brand products but choose more affordable products with little difference in quality." To some extent, this is indeed confirmed in large bottles of drinks. But interestingly, although consumers want affordability, they don't want affordability that "loses quality," just like they don't want flat carbonated drinks. These consumers who use large bottles of unsweetened tea and low-sugar juice as a "premium substitute" for water are hard to label as consumption downgrading. They are just being more "discerning" in judging consumption needs, finding products that match their needs and are affordable. In fact, categories, brands, and products all exist under specific era demands. Taking one step faster or one step slower leads to completely different fates. Just as many brands are experiencing a cold winter, Oriental Leaf, which has endured a decade on the bench, is now welcoming its spring.