---
title: "Daily Sales Break One Million! Post-00s Boost 'Tipsy Tool', Reviving a 43-Year-Old Henan Legacy Brand"
description: "Post-00s have created a new 10-billion-yuan tipsy market: Chinese-style tea beer. Xinyang Maojian, West Lake Longjing, lemon-scented Dancong, peanut oolong... When tea meets beer, sealed with Chinese-style visuals and Eastern narratives, it has become a hot craft beer segment in the past year. The trendsetters are mid-tier domestic beer brands."
author: "天下网商"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2025-06-21"
categories: "Brand Marketing, Consumer & Categories, Retail Formats"
language: "en"
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citation: "天下网商. “Daily Sales Break One Million! Post-00s Boost 'Tipsy Tool', Reviving a 43-Year-Old Henan Legacy Brand.” New Distribution, 2025-06-21. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/daily-sales-break-one-million-post-00s-boost-tipsy-tool-reviving-a-43-ye-054ce72a/"
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---

# Daily Sales Break One Million! Post-00s Boost 'Tipsy Tool', Reviving a 43-Year-Old Henan Legacy Brand

> Post-00s have created a new 10-billion-yuan tipsy market: Chinese-style tea beer. Xinyang Maojian, West Lake Longjing, lemon-scented Dancong, peanut oolong... When tea meets beer, sealed with Chinese-style visuals and Eastern narratives, it has become a hot craft beer segment in the past year. The trendsetters are mid-tier domestic beer brands.

**Source**丨天下网商
Post-00s have drunk up a brand-new 10-billion-yuan tipsy market—Chinese-style tea beer.
Xinyang Maojian, West Lake Longjing, lemon-scented Dancong, peanut oolong... When tea is blended with beer, and then "sealed in bottles" with Chinese-style visuals and Eastern narratives, it has created a sought-after craft beer sub-segment over the past year.
The author noticed that videos related to "tea beer" have garnered over 30 million views on short-video platforms; on Xiaohongshu, there are more than 30,000 posts on "which tea beer tastes better."
The wind-makers of this tipsy economy are mid-tier domestic beer brands.
Henan金星啤酒 Group, founded in 1982, launched its "Xinyang Maojian Chinese-style Craft Beer" in August 2024. On the first day of live streaming, it sold 6 tons of beer, jumping to the top of the beer sales chart. In the following three months, it purchased nearly 90,000 jin (45,000 kg) of tea leaves. According to a tea company, 金星 once ordered 3 tons of tea from them, shocking the "Maojian circle."
The resurgence of 金星啤酒 has driven domestic brands like Shandong Yinghao, Qingdao Laoshan Family Beer, and Fugui Xiang to join the trend. According to Tmall data, in the first half of this year, craft beer including tea beer saw significantly higher year-on-year growth than the overall beer market, with tea beer leading flavor innovation categories as an emerging segment.
Zhang Zeyuan, General Manager of the Alcohol Industry at Taotian Group, analyzed: "The explosion of tea beer is essentially a category segmentation dividend driven by demand. On the supply side, it is mainly product innovation from regional old breweries driving sales, still in the 'big factory testing waters, segment exploration' stage, leaving room for new brands to enter."
Not only brands are making efforts; retailers like Hema and Fat Donglai have also jumped in, using private labels and co-branded customizations to get a share of the "beer." Catering giant Haidilao also released a Longjing craft beer.
Young women, low-calorie tipsiness, social self-pleasure—the keywords triggered by tea beer are similar to the "fruit-flavored low-alcohol drinks" that emerged around 2018. At that time, new brands like Berry Sweetie and Kongka were all the rage, but they faded after capital withdrew.
As midsummer approaches, Chinese-style tea beer is making a comeback with a 100-billion-yuan tipsy economy. This time, can it grow from a concept into a category and unleash greater market imagination?
**43-Year-Old Brewery Revives with 'Tea Beer'**
**Purchases 90,000 Jin of Tea Leaves in 3 Months**
"On the first day of live streaming, we wanted to test product acceptance. We didn't expect it to be so popular; we prepared 6 tons and sold out completely." The initial heat of Xinyang Maojian Chinese-style Craft Beer exceeded the expectations of Wang Wenyi, Director of Brand Promotion Headquarters at 金星啤酒.
With a 43-year history, 金星啤酒 is a leading local brewery in Zhengzhou, Henan, with an annual beer production capacity of about 2 million tons, ranking first in Henan and fourth nationally, with 17 beer production bases across provinces.
In the highly concentrated beer industry, regional and mid-tier players like 金星 once faced the challenge of channel blockade by giants.
"We were forced into a corner," said Zhang Tieshan, Chairman of 金星啤酒, in 2015. "I paid a restaurant 10,000 yuan a year, but another brewery paid 15,000 yuan. Whoever pays more gets their beer sold. If we don't participate, the market is taken away; if we do, costs increase."
In September 2023, Luckin Coffee partnered with Moutai to create the phenomenal cross-category hit "Sauce-flavored Latte," with first-day sales exceeding 100 million yuan. Since then, tea-alcohol fusion has become a hot topic in the beer industry.
金星 keenly captured the potential of this trend in the craft beer sector, turning to Henan's local famous tea "Xinyang Maojian," giving birth to a tea-beer fusion craft beer.
"One sip, three fragrances"—this is the slogan 金星 uses for its Chinese-style craft beer. The "three fragrances" refer to the malt's wheat aroma, Xinyang Maojian's tea aroma, and the hop-derived beer aroma. According to the brand's Tmall flagship store customer service, the tea flavor in the beer does not come from flavorings or extracts; each can uses an average of 2 grams of tea leaves, fermented slowly over 28 days.
"Xinyang Maojian is a famous local product from Henan, known as one of 'China's Top Ten Famous Teas.' Its combination with beer is a win-win partnership," said food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng in an interview. "Since 2021, China's craft beer market has entered a period of rapid expansion and homogenization. Cross-category flavor innovation creates differentiated competitiveness, reflecting supply-side self-iteration."
The author noted that beyond flavor innovation, 金星's tea beer also puts effort into packaging: first, it abandons traditional glass bottles for lighter, larger-capacity cans, with a single can holding 1 liter, which is more conducive to long-distance transport in e-commerce; second, the font and logo design lean toward minimalist and Chinese-style, increasing visual recognition.
As a product with enough novelty and content genes, scenario marketing is the preferred way to stimulate demand. From initial launch to fermentation to explosion, 金星啤酒 arranged its first wave of momentum on Douyin.
"The wind is too strong; I've tried it for you. Xinyang Maojian is the best. It's stronger than Qiangshuang, and you'll be dizzy after drinking, guaranteed to sleep well."
After the official live-stream launch, videos from influencers and ordinary users with similar copy templates spread rapidly on Douyin, with three core scenarios: friend gatherings, home drinking, and drinking challenges. They stimulated purchase desire through benefits like fresh and non-bitter taste, headiness, and stress relief, fueling the tea beer craze.
After noticing that the new product was more popular among women, 金星啤酒 quickly responded and launched new flavors like Peach Oolong and Jasmine Tea. During last year's Double 11, 金星 entered the "Friends" live-stream room, further expanding its reach with top influencers and promotions, then spread across all channels, selling well on Taobao and Tmall.
**Chinese-style Craft Beer Sales Surge 224%**
**Bars, Platforms, and Retailers Join the Trend**
The "one sip, three fragrances" tea beer has opened a market gap for mid-sized beer brands, but tracing the origin of tea beer, 金星 is not the earliest player.
According to media reports, as early as 2017, Jinan's craft brewery Beiping Machine in Shandong had launched "Mingqian Longjing Wheat Craft Beer," which received good reviews in the industry and became a summer staple for many young drinkers. Qingdao, Carlsberg, Chi'er, and other brands of various sizes have also tried tea-flavored beers.
However, these early attempts mostly targeted interest groups, and many products were limited to offline scenarios, making it hard to reach the general public. 金星啤酒's success in 2024 allowed the "tea beer" concept to explode on a large scale for the first time, igniting enthusiasm for Chinese-style craft beer across the entire industry chain.
From regional breweries and offline bars to new retail giants, multiple forces have been drawn into this tipsy storm. According to statistics, in 2024, more than 50 new tea beer products were launched domestically, with mid-tier brands contributing over 70%.
For example, Shandong Yinghao introduced sub-tea varieties like Osmanthus Oolong and Zhengshan Xiaozhong into tea beer; Qingdao Laoshan Family launched Red Date Jinjunmei for health scenarios, emphasizing warming the stomach without causing dizziness. Additionally, industry insiders observed during visits to offline craft beer bars that Longjing Wheat is one of the hottest items in recent years.
The effectiveness of the "tea-alcohol formula" has inspired more innovation on the supply side, expanding the Chinese-style craft beer camp. Hema's entry added more fuel to the category's heat.
Hema's Chinese-style craft beer product matrix includes tea-flavored beers like Longjing Fresh Beer and Lemon-scented Dancong Fresh Beer, as well as Chinese-style flavors like Candied Hawthorn Fresh Beer, Mung Bean Beer, and Warm Ginger Cider. They share two commonalities: first, they incorporate Chinese food ingredients; second, the taste is lighter on alcohol, closer to beverages. It is reported that Hema's Mung Bean craft beer saw a 224% year-on-year sales increase in July last year.
The author found that on e-commerce platforms, Chinese-style craft beers from brands like 金星, Yinghao, and Qingdao Laoshan Family are priced at 15-20 yuan per liter; Hema's is priced at 9.9 yuan per 500ml. In comparison, ordinary industrial beer is mostly priced at 3-8 yuan per 500ml, while traditional craft beer has a wider price range, usually 15-50 yuan per 500ml, with high-end versions exceeding 100 yuan.
From a pricing strategy perspective, Chinese-style craft beer is slightly more expensive than ordinary beer but more affordable than traditional craft beer, aiming to achieve quality upgrade while lowering the price band, reducing the entry barrier for beginners to try craft beer, and offering certain cost-performance and differentiation advantages.
Zhang Zeyuan said that Taotian platform's current beer consumption shows three characteristics: "lager stocking," "craft beer tasting," and "emphasis on timeliness." "Taobao users tend to buy bulk packs in the 50-150 yuan price range, prompting brands to focus on 12-bottle/24-bottle case sizes and single-bottle capacities of 500ml/700ml or more. In packaging, Chinese-style and minimalist designs are also popular."
This Chinese-style craft beer trend, led by mid-tier brands, is like a "conspiracy" between supply chain and scenarios: craft breweries and brands develop differentiated products and ignite category heat online, offline bars create experiential value, and platforms and retailers further amplify the scale effect.
With multi-party efforts, Chinese-style craft beer is gradually transitioning from niche tasting to mass consumption, driving this sub-category to break out.
**Stirring the 100-Billion-Yuan Tipsy Economy**
**Can 'De-bittered' Craft Beer Grow a Big Market?**
"Bitterness was once the soul of craft beer."
An enthusiast who has been drinking craft beer for over 5 years said, "When craft beer was first introduced to China from Europe and the US, the audience was very small. Bitter beers like IPA (India Pale Ale) were once considered a must-have for seasoned drinkers."
However, in recent years, the trend of "de-bittering" and "beverage-ization" in craft beer has become increasingly clear, and this transformation direction may have been inspired by the coffee sector.
Luckin Coffee is the "cause" of this change. It is reported that Luckin internally calls its product strategy the "Big Latte" strategy, which uses latte as a base and continuously adds innovative elements such as flavored syrups, dairy, tea, and alcohol to create high-repurchase hits. The core logic is to transform coffee from a functional drink into a daily beverage through high-frequency iteration, localized improvement, and popular taste.
Coconut Latte and Sauce-flavored Latte are representative works under this strategy, and this product trend has driven coffee chains like Manner and M Stand to follow suit.
In the author's view, Luckin's positioning of coffee as a beverage is essentially a precise response to the localized needs of the Chinese coffee market. This innovation direction, already validated by the market, is now being reused in the craft beer track to reach a broader audience.
Female consumers are a key driver in the Chinese-style craft beer market breakthrough. According to "Yunjiu Toutiao," among consumers of 金星's Xinyang Maojian and other Chinese-style craft beers, women account for nearly 60%, contrasting with the traditional beer market where men dominate.
In Zhang Zeyuan's view, young consumers, especially women, have a clear demand for craft beer with "low bitterness and high fruit aroma." Over a longer cycle, he believes that low-alcohol, floral and fruity beer flavors are a long-term demand of the new generation of drinkers, and this trend will last at least 3-5 years.
Around 2018, brands like RIO, Berry Sweetie, and Kongka launched low-alcohol products, rapidly rising under the "tipsy economy" concept with capital support, but the OEM model led to severe product homogenization. Many consumers criticized low-alcohol drinks as "sickly sweet," "industrial-tasting," and "not like alcohol," and scenarios like solo drinking or small gatherings failed to generate high repurchase, leading to market cooling.
Now, the tipsy economy is replaying in the beer industry.
But this time, product innovation led by craft breweries attempts to make substantial upgrades in craftsmanship, and tea beer's breakout precisely emphasizes "real tea added," aligning with the natural ingredient trend.
The R&D deputy director of 金星啤酒 introduced the craftsmanship of Chinese-style craft beer: "Chinese-style craft beer is not simple mixing or random addition, but finding the combination point between Chinese raw materials and brewing techniques. Some use cold extraction, some use full or semi-fermentation, and some use precise purification to preserve the original flavor of ingredients."
Beer is a monopolistic, stock market where the CR5 (combined market share of the top five companies) exceeds 90%. While China's beer production has declined for nine consecutive years, the craft beer track has seen a compound annual growth rate of 25% in the past three years, becoming a major growth pole for the industry.
In recent years, industrial beer giants have laid out craft beer sub-brands but have struggled with high-end involution. The emergence of Chinese-style craft beer shows a new possibility for the craft beer category to break out and grow.
According to the "2023 Craft Beer Industry Research Report," it is estimated that by 2025, China's craft beer market size may reach 130 billion yuan, with new Chinese-style craft beer as an important sub-direction.
"China's craft beer market has entered the 2.0 era, and growth depends on the participation of female consumers. Traditionally, women's habit was 'I drink beverages, you drink alcohol,' but the new generation of women seeks shared emotional value in social interactions, yet finds it hard to adapt to traditional beer taste. The flavor innovation of Chinese-style craft beer exactly meets their needs," Zhu Danpeng told this author.
This shift is not isolated. Zhang Zeyuan cited global alcohol consumption trends: "Old-school sake like Kiku-Masamune, known for its heavy body and strong dryness, is being abandoned by young people, while new-school sake like Aramasa and Mitsuba has attracted many fans in a short time through fruit aroma and sweetness via raw material and technique innovation; whiskey consumers are also moving from top brands and basic ages to small distilleries and special flavors like floral, fruity, and smoky."
Now, the wind-makers of Chinese-style craft beer have new moves. After "tea beer," 金星啤酒 has set its sights on "food beer," launching Chinese-style craft beers with flavors like tangerine peel and catnip, and will next launch flower and fruit series.
"When you say beer, it's German, American, Belgian style. We have so many good things in China; we should have Chinese-style beer," said Liu Guolin, R&D Deputy Director of 金星啤酒.
Like the low-alcohol drinks of yesteryear, Chinese-style craft beer is undergoing a transition from "concept" to "category," and still needs to face long-term market testing. Whether it can make consumers willingly continue to pay will be the key to the success or failure of this flavor experiment.
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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 天下网商
- Published: 2025-06-21
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/daily-sales-break-one-million-post-00s-boost-tipsy-tool-reviving-a-43-ye-054ce72a/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DSzg58RKYDfimPNmYoN49g

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