Luxury fads are perishing

A 91-kg pu'er tea ball displayed at a fair in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The taste for high-end tea has been drying up, as prices have been under pressure from the government's austerity drive and anti-graft campaign, in addition to a slowing economy.

Many companies that sell high-end tea, such as Yunnan Taetea Industry Group, a leading Pu'er tea company, are vying to lure more customers by offering lower prices. Taetea has lowered the prices of its most popular products by more than 50 percent from March 2014 to the end of year.

Sales of gift sets and group-purchasing dropped, and the market was expected to be filled by growing demand for mid-range tea products, according to a report from the China Tea Marketing Association.

Many premium tea brands saw constant slides in their prices under State control. A type of the finest Pu'er by Chinese tea brand Dayi, a top-class green tea, saw its price drop from 24,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan per kilogram.

Back to 2006, China started a frenzy of Pu'er amid hot money speculation. Pu'er tea from the Qing dynasty sold at 160,000 yuan for 100 grams. During the ASEAN Expo in 2007, a kilogram of "King of Pu'er" boasted price of over 6 million yuan.

By then, merchants, consumers and connoisseurs were all hoarding Pu'er. However, the price of Pu'er plunged in only half a year, and the industry suffered a heavy loss.

"Earlier the tea market was filled with speculative bubbles, and most Chinese tea products boasted overly high prices," said Wu Jing, editor-in-chief of teatalking.cn, the website of the China National Tea Museum Tea Club.

"Tea prices are going to bounce back to become more rational. Brands need to stand out by utilizing their regional competitive advantages in production and providing tea products that are highly cost-effective."