Chinese tea is now often drink milk, is gradually evolved from British milk tea. </ span>

British milk tea

In the 17th century, tea was poured into Europe. However, because of the taste of black tea, foreigners added some milk to the tea to offset the bitterness of the tea, so British milk tea was born. Hong Kong was deeply influenced by Britain and gradually drank milk tea. Chua Lam, a Hong Kong gourmet columnist, said: "(Hong Kong) Café is a wonderful tea. The British are in Hong Kong for 99 years and they also embed this word in Hong Kong's life."

Later came to Taiwan milk tea, 80s of last century, Taiwan's Shuishuitang teahouse whimsical, polish tea Riga, created a pearl milk tea. Later, with the advent of the tea takeaway stall mode, pearl milk tea became the most popular drink in Taiwan.

About Taiwan tea came into the mainland market in 1996, followed by more than a decade, the tea ushered in blowout growth. Until 2011 plasticizer incident, pearl milk tea affected. However, at the same time, milk cap tea came out to replace the pearl milk tea to become the most popular tea.

Hillary Clinton tasting pearl milk tea in Queens, New York

How popular is tea in China? According to the word-of-mouth consumption data released in 2017, the hottest product in China's consumer food and beverage consumption list is not coffee nor bread, but milk tea. In the past year, almost 100 million users had bought milk tea. The average annual consumption per person in milk tea reached 80 yuan, of which the highest in Shanghai was 134 yuan. The data also show that in tea consumption, the average transaction amount is about 20 yuan each, only 10% lower than Chinese fast food.

Chinese people are more fanatical tea? Shanghai, a network of red tea shop in February 2017 after the opening of one month, created a "buy a cup of 7 hours" record, and sales of professional cattle Cat No. or spot.

Some tea shops were burst out "hired queuing"

Fanatic is not only Red Milk tea shop. "Modern Express" reported that in Nanjing Xinjiekou subway station underground passage, as many as 57 tea shops. Of course, Nanjing Xinjiekou subway station is huge, with 24 outlets, but even so, on average, there are more than two outlets for a tea shop. And, 65% of these tea shops are newly opened within a year. In other words, a year's time, Xinjiekou underground more than 40 tea shop.

For the younger generation, tea is not just for drinking

Now on the age of "after 80", most of the milk tea drunk in the student age is red, different colors of tea powder corresponding to different color tastes. 10 years ago, such as "thumbs", "subway" such a small tea shop around the school, a cup of tea is often the price of 1.5 yuan -3 yuan, Lan received a lot of student customers.

Such tea shops have been around the streets of many cities

However, when the plasticizer incident in Taiwan broke out in 2011, many well-known brand names of milk tea in Taiwan have been found to contain plasticizers in their tea. Plasticizers appear because the traditional process can no longer meet the high-volume production, the pursuit of some of the convenience chain enterprises, with cream + tea to modulate the so-called milk tea. Such tea, milk can not be integrated, after standing for a short period of time will be separated, so need to add cloud agent.

Legitimate clouding agent is used to overcome the problem of an additive, with natural oils such as palm oil prepared, but most of the natural vegetable oil unsaturated fatty acids, poor stability, shelf life is also shorter, eventually found that plastic Instead of palm oil, a chelating agent can be used to make a clouding agent that works better, has a longer shelf life, and is much less expensive, so plasticizers appear in milk tea.

In 2011, Taiwan Wyatt sports drink apologize for the plasticizer incident

Today, mainstream milk tea brands are using milk, light cream and other production of tea, but more and more milk cap tea. Of course, the price will also rise, a dozen cups of tea has been considered cheaper, and many tea prices are more than 20 yuan, and queuing to buy.

The success of China's milk tea market, a large part of the reason, need to attributed to the overall social consumption upgrade. From the perspective of demand from Maslow, the previous income is small, the choice is limited, the drink is to quench their thirst, greed, this is the most basic physiological needs.

Maslow needs

When food safety incidents such as "plasticizers" break out, the rush to milk tea starts to chill and consumers are willing to pay higher economic costs for safe milk tea, which is actually a demand for safety.

Today, the function of milk tea as a "drink" is still declining. A China Newsweek article said: "The first thing young people who buy Net Red Milk Tea, instead of drinking milk tea, quickly took out their cell phone and photographed this moment with microblogging. In the circle, you can see the young people 'Sun' Net Red Milk tea in the afternoon, and after a weekend afternoon, it seems as if they had become a status symbol with a net of Red Milk Tea. "Milk tea has risen to social needs.

Hot tea explosion hidden worries: Chinese people may be more and more fat

Tea is getting hotter and hotter to the Chinese people than it is. Drink more tea, really like the fat as Jay Chou.

Jay was photographed while getting off while drinking tea, a lot of body fat

In August 2017, Shanghai Consumer Protection Commission conducted comparative tests on a number of tea shops. The tests showed that the normal sweet tea with a sugar content of 11-62 grams per cup had an average sugar content of 34 grams per cup, Exceed 25 grams recommended in the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2016)".

The negative effects of eating too much sugar on the body are obvious. In February 2013, the authoritative science magazine Nature published a paper called The Toxicity of Sugar.

In the paper, the researchers demonstrated through animal experiments: "Sugar addiction is a double effect .On the one hand, sugar affects the hormones in the body, so that the brain can not send signals of fullness, eat more and eat more, the stomach is full and want to continue Eating; on the other hand, the impact of sugar on hormones in the body, but also in the brain will continue to issue the signal to be sugar intake, just like smoking addiction, people who eat sugar will be more and more love sugar.

In addition to sugar, after testing, the fat content of milk tea is also high, especially milk tea average fat content of 6.3 g / 100 ml, the highest cup up to 41 grams of fat. For healthy adults with energy intake of 2000kcal / d, the Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2016) recommends a daily fat intake of no more than 66g. The fat mass of a cup of milk tea is close to 2/3 of the recommended amount.

Chinese figure is actually very optimistic. A 2016 survey by the British medical magazine The Lancet covering 19.2 million adults showed that the global obesity population has risen to 641 million. At the same time, China overtakes the United States as the world's most obese country.

Why carry consumption upgrade is milk tea, rather than other drinks?

The one hand, is that tea still has a very wide audience in China. According to the data from the National Economic Research Office of Tea Technology System, there are nearly 500 million tea consumers in China, accounting for 36% of the total population. So, let the Chinese accept milk tea there is no obstacle.

According to a joint survey conducted by First Financial Business Data Center and Word of Mouth, girls aged 18-25 are the major consumers of Chinese tea. At the same time, young girls are also highly susceptible to the trend and the formation of spontaneous dissemination, "net red milk tea" brand will be formed.

After buying milk tea, taking pictures is serious

On the other hand is related to the characteristics of the upgrading of consumption of young people. "Green Bamboo New Consumption" believes that the upgrading of these young people's consumption is characterized by the spiritual level first reaching a more advanced level, but the material level is difficult to sustain. Therefore, the current consumption upgrade is actually to meet the luxury of the intermediate state, that is, light luxury.

The tea shop has also changed the previous takeout stalls mode, began to move to the cafe mode, from simple selling drinks to selling experience. This is a very good tea to fill the needs of young people: good-looking products, good drinks, space experience standard international coffee shop chain, the most important is the average price lower.