One of the Chaos: Overhyped Greed
The price of Tieguanyin tea has almost gone up by rocket in recent years, completely deviating from the initial intention of a piece of tea. A tea merchant said that in the early days, the price of Tieguanyin tea was 400-500 yuan RMB per catty, but now it has increased by nearly 10 times. The highest price of spring tea in 2008 was around 10,000 yuan. By 20 12, it even reached tens of thousands of yuan a catty. Except for some tea shops, most of them bid at will. Because there is no specific instrument to measure the variety and quality of Tieguanyin, many tea merchants, in the case of high operating expenses, "steal the beam and replace the column" to make high profits by shoddy goods. The person in charge of Anxi Tea Office said that there are more than 3,000 merchants in Anxi Tea Wholesale Market, and there is no unified price guidance. When spring tea first came into the market, it was almost a price per day. The price of crude tea (tea just processed by tea farmers) generally ranges from 65,438 yuan+0,000 yuan per catty, and 3,000 yuan of crude tea is considered top-notch. According to experts, Tieguanyin's sky-high price began with the holding of tea Wang Sai, but with the emergence of tea Wang Sai, some tea merchants used the Tea King Competition to speculate on the price. In recent years, many tea merchants, regardless of batch, quantity, level, time, place and unit of awarding prizes, call Tieguanyin collected by winners or units as the "King of Guanyin" and raise the price of Tieguanyin in disguise. This excessive tea price is gradually drifting away from tea people. Behind the high price of tea is the greed of tea merchants. This blind price comparison in the market makes Tieguanyin fall instead of long when the prices of various teas continue to rise. "Tieguanyin sales have declined for several consecutive years, and suppliers have taken the initiative to reduce prices according to slow sales." A tea merchant who asked not to be named said that compared with Jin Junmei and Longjing, Tieguanyin's sales volume is declining now, and it is possible to fade out the first-line tea products. "Tieguanyin's market has been chaotic in recent years. Many tea merchants take tea directly from the place of origin to the market for sale, without emphasizing the production process, which leads to the price of Tieguanyin in some markets being affected by the hype of the sales terminal, and the price is also very different. Over time, some consumers gradually lost confidence in them, resulting in cold market sales. " A senior person in Shenzhen tea market said.
Chaos 2: 50% of Tieguanyin is not from Anxi.
Because Anxi Tieguanyin tea is popular in the market, the surrounding areas of Anxi County try their best, some borrow the processing technology of local tea green to make Anxi Tieguanyin tea, or introduce Anxi Tieguanyin tea for processing in different places. The varieties and ecological environment of tea trees are obviously different from Anxi, and these products are all called Anxi Tieguanyin as soon as they are listed, and the product quality is uneven, which objectively makes the terminal consumer market have a deviation in understanding Tieguanyin products. Tea was once profitable all the way, but with the increase of consumer demand, Tieguanyin planting base has expanded infinitely since 2000, not only in neighboring Yongchun, Hua 'an, Zhangping and other places, but also some tea enterprises introduced Tieguanyin from outside the province. The quality of Tieguanyin planted outside the province is completely different from that of Anxi. These teas planted in Waifu are claimed to come from Anxi, but the quality and brand image of Tieguanyin are greatly affected because there is no authentic origin. During the visit, the author found that Tieguanyin was planted in many paddy fields and roadsides that were not suitable for planting Tieguanyin. Local farmers say that the profit of planting Tieguanyin is much better than that of planting food crops, and it is picked many times a year. But just like this, a large number of inferior Tieguanyin went to the market, completely destroying people's taste buds and love for Tieguanyin.
Chaos 3: the lack of conscience behind pesticides
20 1 1 The measured value of "Lipton" Tieguanyin rare earth in Unilever (China) Co., Ltd. exceeded the standard by more than 3 times. According to reports, the excessive rare earth in tea is related to pesticide residues. Experts say that rare earth is a general term for more than ten elements, and excessive heavy metals in food may have many effects on human body, including liver and kidney failure and nervous system. , but the specific impact depends on the concentration. This has pushed Tieguanyin pesticide exceeding the standard to the forefront. Since the start of Anxi Tieguanyin, the market has opened rapidly and has made great strides all the way. Due to the rapid expansion of market demand, even the demand exceeds the supply, Anxi people vigorously develop tea planting, thus overexploiting tea gardens and destroying the original plant ecology in Anxi County. Single tea planting deviates from the principle of biodiversity, soil degradation is serious, and pests and diseases in tea gardens are aggravated, resulting in unstable tea quality and excessive pesticide residues. Farmers blindly pursue the output of Tieguanyin, which leads to the overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and finally is exposed because of the sampling inspection of a big brand. This pesticide incident has made more tea people flinch in front of Tieguanyin with high tea price and low quality.
Chaos 4: Get quick success and instant benefit
Anxi Tieguanyin originally had its own excellent traditional craft, but since the incense craft came out, the situation has changed rapidly. Because fragrant Tieguanyin greatly improved the efficiency of tea making and reduced the threshold and cost of tea making, fragrant Tieguanyin technology became popular and even unified the rivers and lakes, but the traditional Tieguanyin did not follow up in time, and the traditional technology almost gave up, and its charm was not introduced to the market in time. It is worth mentioning that air-conditioning tea making is an innovation of Anxi people, which breaks the shackles of climatic conditions and makes all-weather processing and picking a reality, but it is too late. Rapid production and uncontrolled processing and picking make it difficult for tea trees to recuperate and recharge their batteries, resulting in uneven tea quality, and the evaluation of Anxi Tieguanyin in the market has also become mixed. Quick success and instant benefit changed the traditional tea-making process, which led to Tieguanyin losing its real flavor. Tieguanyin, semi-fermented oolong tea, the fermentation degree should be above 30% when making. However, some tea farmers only fermented Tieguanyin by 65,438+00% in pursuit of fragrance and market volume, which shortened the fermentation time and increased the market volume. However, changing the traditional production process of Tieguanyin will gradually lose its original flavor with the passage of time. In addition, tea trees are planted in a soil environment that is not suitable for their growth, and the quality of tea produced is greatly reduced, thus making Tieguanyin circulating in the whole tea market not really a good Tieguanyin.
Chaos 5: e-commerce malicious bidding
What brings a more fatal blow to Tieguanyin market is e-commerce. When the Tieguanyin market was booming, the author saw some tea merchants playing low-priced cards on the e-commerce platform to induce consumers, but in fact, those "9.9 Jin Yuan" teas were all leftovers, second to none. The purchase price of tea is less than 10 yuan, and even the planting cost cannot be recovered. The disaster of e-commerce almost labeled Tieguanyin as "inferior". Such excessive hype has brought a serious fatal blow to Tieguanyin market, which has been deeply mired in the shadow of pesticide residues, and the market has been in a downturn so far. The Tieguanyin market is smoky and continues to slump, and the ultimate victims are thousands of tea farmers in Qian Qian. It is reported that Anxi, the world-famous Tieguanyin producing area, ranks first among the key tea-producing counties in China. Among the 6.5438+million permanent residents, there are 600,000 people involved in tea, and there are 6.5438+million tea merchants in other parts of the country. By the end of 20 1 1, the total output value of tea in Anxi county was 9.2 billion yuan. Anxi tea garden covers an area of 600,000 mu, accounting for 2% of the country, with an annual output of 65,000 tons of tea, accounting for 4% of the country. Surprisingly, the output value of Anxi tea industry accounts for 15% of the national tea output value. Nowadays, the unsalable sales behind this chaos are the bad luck of a group of tea farmers.