---
title: "Sugar-Free Tea Drinks Grow Over 30% Annually: Who's Behind Their 'Comeback'?"
description: "This year, more sugar-free tea beverages are appearing in supermarkets, from Nongfu Spring's Oriental Leaf to Uni-President's Chaliwang, Wahaha's Anhua Dark Tea, and Coca-Cola's Honest Tea. Major manufacturers are rushing in, heating up the market. With more choices, is spring finally here for sugar-free tea?"
author: "阿图"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-01-13"
categories: "Consumer & Categories"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VcUa9tqu5qyBAtTy2fiCxQ"
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---

# Sugar-Free Tea Drinks Grow Over 30% Annually: Who's Behind Their 'Comeback'?

> This year, more sugar-free tea beverages are appearing in supermarkets, from Nongfu Spring's Oriental Leaf to Uni-President's Chaliwang, Wahaha's Anhua Dark Tea, and Coca-Cola's Honest Tea. Major manufacturers are rushing in, heating up the market. With more choices, is spring finally here for sugar-free tea?

This year, more and more sugar-free tea beverages are appearing in supermarkets, including Nongfu Spring's Oriental Leaf, Uni-President's Chaliwang, Wahaha's Anhua Dark Tea, and Coca-Cola's Honest Tea. Major manufacturers are rushing in, heating up the sugar-free tea market.
**With more choices, is spring finally here for sugar-free tea?**
**-01- Why was Oriental Leaf once ranked among the five worst-tasting drinks?**
When it comes to sugar-free tea, one brand that cannot be ignored is Nongfu Spring's Oriental Leaf. Launched in 2011, this brand, despite its historically rich name, beautiful advertising visuals, and packaging design that upholds Nongfu Spring's usual aesthetic standards, did not win consumer favor after launch and was even rated as one of the five worst-tasting drinks.
Such a reversal was probably unexpected even for Nongfu Spring at the time. Why did Oriental Leaf experience such ups and downs?
First, let's recall: what drinks were popular back then? Master Kong black and green teas, juices, carbonated drinks, milk tea, etc. A major characteristic of these products was "sweetness."
According to Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari in "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind": high-calorie sweets were rare in our ancestors' lives, so during food gathering, if they encountered high-calorie food, based on survival competition, the wisest approach was to eat until they couldn't eat anymore. This instinctive urge to gorge on high-calorie food is deeply ingrained in our genes; one could say that a sweet tooth is an instinct.
**Sugar-free tea, precisely, goes against the "sweet" baseline.** Its ingredients include only water, tea leaves, and a small amount of stabilizers, making it like a cup of cooled tea in a bottle. It's hard for users to like such a bland drink; they feel it's "not worth the taste," and cold tea also doesn't match conventional drinking habits. This is very evident in user reviews: "Tastes like overnight tea," "Too bland, not sweet."
**Consumer demand was not strong enough. Why would we drink a pure tea beverage? There are two reasons: active and passive.**
Active is easy to understand—finding the taste acceptable or even liking it. Passive acceptance is based on various reasons, such as needing a low-calorie or low-sugar diet. But in earlier years, there was less dissemination about the dangers of high-sugar diets, and users did not deeply recognize the physical harm caused by sugary drinks.
Therefore, most consumers still followed their instincts. Thus, although there was demand for sugar-free tea, it was not strong, and the consumer base was relatively small.
Another issue: **Why don't young people like tea? Tea has thousands of years of history in China, but a long history also makes it more likely to be seen as old-fashioned.**
Pure tea was once considered a drink for the older generation; "a newspaper and a cup of tea" was a description of the lazy, conservative lifestyle of previous government departments. In an era when young people want to be unconventional and pursue trends, "**drinking tea = old-fashioned**" became a stereotype.
The mild nature of sugar-free tea, compared to the icy stimulation of cola and the trendy elements like surfing and parkour in ads, seems a bit lukewarm, more like a middle-of-the-road attitude, not trendy, not cool, and not attractive enough.
**Besides the product itself, sugar-free tea also had no advantage in price and distribution.** Taking Oriental Leaf as an example, its initial price was around 3 yuan, higher than the average beverage price, which naturally lost some consumers; higher prices mean stricter requirements for channels, affecting the flow in conventional channels, so its distribution was lower than other brands. Users often reported not finding Oriental Leaf at retail points.
**In summary, the taste and product attributes of sugar-free tea limited its audience, and its price and channel position were relatively disadvantageous, keeping it lukewarm.**
**-02- Sugar-free tea: clearing the clouds to see the sun**
Nongfu Spring's persistence in sugar-free tea is commendable. Although Oriental Leaf remained lukewarm, Nongfu Spring firmly believed that sugar-free tea was the future direction, so despite unsatisfactory sales, the product was retained.
According to Nielsen statistics, **before 2016, the domestic sugar-free tea market growth was still in single digits, but it began to climb rapidly in 2017, with growth rates of 30% or even higher in both 2017 and 2018, showing great development potential.**
As the sugar-free tea market revived this year, Uni-President's Chaliwang made a comeback after failing in the mainland market years ago, and Wahaha's Anhua Dark Tea, Coca-Cola's Honest Tea, Vitasoy's sugar-free tea, and other new products were launched, revitalizing brand confidence in sugar-free tea. Oriental Leaf successfully became the category leader. According to the 2018 C-NPS China Customer Recommendation Index, Oriental Leaf ranked first in the sugar-free tea category.
Why is sugar-free tea starting to heat up?
Let's analyze from the three dimensions of **people, product, and place**.
**First, let's talk about the "people" factor.** Currently, the post-85s to post-95s have become the main consumer group. What characteristics do these users have? Increasing life and work pressure, overnutrition, sedentary lifestyles, and lack of exercise affect both body and mind, manifesting as lack of energy, drowsiness, obesity, and a younger trend in the incidence of middle-aged and elderly diseases such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high blood lipids, and cardiovascular diseases.
When the obvious negative effects of overnutrition appear in the news and in life, dietary restraint becomes a necessary action. Health maintenance among young people has become a hot topic. "Keeping goji berries in a thermos" is not just a joke but a real part of young people's lives.
Consumers are beginning to focus on healthy eating, reducing sugar, reducing fat, and eating plant-based products. In beverages, this translates to sugar reduction. According to a recent tea beverage market survey: 43% of respondents said they pay attention to sugar content when buying tea drinks. At this point, the power of passive consumption is amplified; sugar-free tea's position in users' minds shifts from an ordinary drink to a weight-loss beverage, from expecting enjoyment to expecting efficacy, making it easier for users to accept.
At the same time, as users pursue nature and authenticity, additive-free sugar-free tea satisfies consumers' desire for purity and naturalness, thus to some extent encouraging more people to try sugar-free tea products.
Additionally, consumers' love for national culture is also conducive to the development of tea culture. With the rise of national trends and the revival of ethnic flavors, consumers are reacquainting themselves with tea, understanding it, and falling in love with it. When tea is no longer a symbol of conservatism and rigidity, young users no longer reject tea but are more willing to accept and taste it, which also drives better development of tea drinks and provides an opportunity for sugar-free tea.
Next, let's talk about the "product." **In fact, sugar-free tea itself has very obvious highlights.**
For example, Nongfu Spring uses high-tech anti-oxidation patents to ensure the tea soup is clear and free of sediment, enhancing visual appeal. Besides Nongfu Spring, other brands such as Wahaha, Uni-President, and Ito En have entered the market, enriching product choices to some extent, with more diverse types and flavors of tea drinks to meet users' varied needs.
Brands' claims about the product have shifted from simple taste descriptions to functional attributes, focusing on low-calorie and weight loss angles, making the stimulation to users more targeted and the product's benefit attributes stronger.
Finally, let's talk about the "place." Previously, sugar-free tea faced a dilemma: how to better match consumers with channels. **The price of sugar-free tea affected further channel expansion and promotion.**
But with the advent of the big data era, the datafication of consumption trajectories helps users understand consumer profiles in different channels, enabling better matching of people and places. Convenience stores and unmanned vending machines, which highly match the sugar-free tea demographic, can effectively shorten the purchase distance between product and user, increase convenience, and thus enhance trial and purchase.
Data shows that **in Shanghai, sugar-free tea contributes over one-fifth of business in convenience store channels favored by young people, and continues to lead other categories with double-digit growth.**
Besides changes in people, product, and place, Atu discovered a very interesting phenomenon during the survey: many users who once thought Oriental Leaf tasted like "dishwater" suddenly found it "really delicious." Did the product change? No. Why do users have such drastically different reactions?
The author speculates that it might be due to changes in consumers' taste function. As users age, their taste changes, gradually adapting to lighter foods, and what was once bland becomes just right. This is also what Nongfu Spring once mentioned: the people who drink tea beverages (adolescents, young adults) will grow up, and sweet tea will eventually become their Giffen good, and then they will see this gift that Nongfu Spring had prepared for them long ago.
Another reason might be subconscious imitation. When reaching a certain age, many behaviors of elders that were previously incomprehensible begin to be understood, and drinking tea becomes acceptable.
It can be said that the popularity of sugar-free tea is inseparable from insight into user needs. When health becomes a new pursuit point, sugar-free and zero-calorie become prominent product benefits, increasing users' motivation to try. At the same time, convenient purchase conditions and rich product choices make user conversion more efficient.
**-03- Where to next?**
**In Japan, over 90% of tea drinks are sugar-free, far higher than the domestic market. The Japanese market can serve as a reference to help analyze the future development of the domestic market.**
Japan's more severe aging population prompts citizens to pay more attention to physical health, and consumers will appropriately adjust calorie intake through diet to reduce the occurrence of age-related diseases such as diabetes and hyperglycemia. At the same time, the culture of sugar-free tea is more mature, becoming a must-have drink for meals and other scenarios.
Combining the consumption habits and age distribution of Chinese and Japanese consumers, we have reason to believe that the domestic sugar-free tea market has great potential in the future. The development of this market may not be very fast, but the current entry of multiple brands will help further catalyze market development.
Sugar-free tea needs multi-brand collaboration to expand the market. Based on current data, the sugar-free tea market is around 1 billion yuan, which is very different from flavored tea. For sugar-free tea, it is necessary to convert the market of sugary drinks like flavored tea and further occupy the healthy beverage market.
This requires brands to make efforts in defining product audiences, consumption scenarios, and product line layout.
Oolong tea and other sugar-free teas have de-greasing effects, which can be leveraged through catering channels by developing appropriately sized products to replace other drinks in meal scenarios. Tea contains caffeine and has a mild refreshing effect, suitable for office workers as a substitute for coffee, reducing physical discomfort caused by coffee.
In hot summer, sugar-free tea is better than flavored tea for relieving heat and thirst, making it an important direction for sugar-free tea to attack flavored tea. Marketing efforts can be amplified to achieve conversion, allowing users to drink sugar-free tea in more scenarios and at higher frequency.
New channel support, such as the placement of hot and cold cabinets, can allow more users to taste tea drinks at suitable seasonal temperatures, enhancing the experience of sugar-free tea.
Break product homogeneity. Current product flavors are mainly mainstream black tea, green tea, oolong tea, and jasmine tea, with minimal differences in processing and taste, leading to severe internal competition.
**In response, differentiation can be achieved through product design and functional enhancements, such as developing high-polyphenol sugar-free tea or high-dietary-fiber sugar-free tea, tailored to users' consumption demands.**
Optimize product processes to reduce bitterness, enhance sweetness aftertaste, and improve user experience. For example, many users, after comparing Nongfu Spring and Ito En's oolong tea, believe Ito En is superior, with no bitterness and a good aftertaste.
**Summary:**
**Sugar-free tea meets consumers' trend toward low-sugar and sugar-free demands. Although the current category market is small, it still has good development prospects. With further process upgrades and channel optimization, sugar-free tea is believed to have a new world.**


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 阿图
- Published: 2020-01-13
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/sugar-free-tea-drinks-grow-over-30-annually-who-s-behind-their-comeback-967883d0/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VcUa9tqu5qyBAtTy2fiCxQ

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