Chao News Client Writer Zhang Rong Xue Wenchun.
In China's largest tea distribution center, the Fangcun Tea Wholesale Market in Guangzhou, "Changshi Tea" seems to have become a scar.
Recently, the management of the Guqiao Tea Street Market, where the Changshi Tea Store is located, covered the door of the store with a plastic woven cloth. In the market, banners that are wary of "** repo" and "high interest bait" can be seen everywhere.
Tea prices soared all the way overnight, and the company was condemned for rights protection, which was established less than half a year ago, and caused an uproar in the market. According to the estimates of tea merchants, more than 500 tea merchants were lured into the game, and the losses were heavy, and the amount involved may exceed 500 million yuan.
The collapse of "Changshi Tea" has also pushed the "financial tea" active in the tea market to the forefront. In recent years, in the name of selling high-end tea, individual tea companies have promised to repurchase it in the form of principal and interest after a certain period of time, and tea has been endowed with financial attributes.
How did the sky-high price of "financial tea" come about?Why is the trend of "roasted tea" repeatedly banned?When will the crazy tea break?The reporter walked into the Fangcun Tea Wholesale Market in Guangzhou.
The Changshi tea store was obscured. Photo by Chao News reporter Xue Wenchun.
In less than 100 days after its opening, Changshi Tea attracted more than 500 people into the game
According to a report by the Southern + client on December 6, "Thunder exploded in three months after listing!Changshi tea into "financial tea" another footnote", since August this year, the person in charge of Changshi tea industry began to promote the Changshi brand to the Fangcun tea market, and the establishment of a WeChat group dedicated to the trading of Changshi products, the price of each tea was about 20,000 yuan at first, and then raised to about 50,000 yuan, but from the evening of November 30, it even fell to more than 2,000 yuan per mention the next day.
In order to verify the facts, the reporter came to the Fangcun tea market and interviewed a number of tea merchants and relevant people of the Guangzhou Tea Association.
Li Ying, the owner, has not had a good night's sleep since December. In order to buy Changshi tea, she once swiped her credit card, borrowed money, and invested more than one million yuan.
According to her, Changshi Tea Company launched a total of 5 products, and saw that the first batch of friends who participated in the purchase of Changshi Tea made a lot of money, and in October, she was also moved.
Changshi tea has two purchase channels, one is to distribute goods from the manufacturer, and you need to pay a deposit and a one-year lock-up allocation fee to become a franchisee;One is to buy goods from five or six dealers (i.e., "saucers") and become **.
At first, Li Ying participated in the form of ** and bought two mentions of Changshi tea, "the unit price is 33,000 yuan**, and she sold it two days later, and she earned 2,000 yuan for one mention." After tasting the sweetness, in early November, when Changshi Tea released its third product, Li Ying paid a deposit of 20,000 yuan and an initial allocation of more than 200,000 yuan and officially joined. Changshi tea franchisees are divided into different grades, the more margins, the higher the grade, and the distribution amount will also increase. Li Ying said that Changshi Tea has more than 300 franchisees, and she is a low-level V1, and you can buy 5 mentions of each product.
Changshi tea franchise program. Photo courtesy of the interviewee.
Until November 30, after the release of the fifth product, the ** price of the saucer suddenly fell nearly 10,000 yuan lower than the price of the subordinate. The next day, the panicked tea merchants used the Changshi tea in their hands to get lower and lower, but no one took over. Overnight, the unit price of Changshi tea fell from more than 50,000 yuan to thousands of yuan.
I wanted to make money, but I lost **. Speaking of Changshi tea, Wang Bin, the 35-year-old owner of Pu'er tea stalls, sighed one after another. After more than two years in the industry, Wang Bin thought that he "knew how to **" and made money by roasting tea before, "I didn't expect this time, I was caught off guard." ”
Some "old tea people" who have been doing it for more than 20 years can't help but enter the pit.
In a shop less than 300 meters away from the Changshi Tea Store, the reporter saw Lu Hongli, whose eyes were red. She has opened a tea shop for more than 20 years, although she only invested more than 100,000 yuan to buy Changshi tea, but the torment brought by ** made her physically and mentally exhausted.
In the Fangcun Tea Market, there are Changshi tea billboards and banners that wary of high-interest investment. Photo by Chao News reporter Xue Wenchun.
Spreading for more than ten years, why is tea moving towards financial products?
In response to the dispute over the "Changshi Tea" incident, Shiweitang Street, Guangzhou, where Fangcun Tea Wholesale Market is located, responded and organized relevant departments to conduct on-site research and office as soon as possible to verify the tea trading compliance behavior of merchant tea merchants. In the next step, Shiweitang Street will strengthen departmental cooperation, strengthen legal popularization and publicity, resolutely resist illegal roasted tea behaviors such as "financial tea" and "sky-high tea", and standardize the business behavior of tea market entities.
From the "old tea man" to the new tea business, Changshi Tea, which was established less than half a year ago, has been able to enter the game with so many people, which is inseparable from Fangcun's long-term "financial tea" investment logic.
Fangcun Tea Wholesale Market. Photo by Chao News reporter Xue Wenchun.
Guangzhou Fangcun Tea Wholesale Market is known as the "Wall Street" of China's tea market. It consists of more than 10 markets such as Fangcun Tea City, Southern Tea Market, and Guqiao Tea Street, with nearly 4,000 registered merchants. A number of tea merchants said that the actual business entity may reach tens of thousands. According to public information, 80% of the country's Pu'er tea transactions are completed here every year.
The subject of the "Financial Tea" transaction is Pu'er tea, one of the main reasons for which it is one of the few foods that do not have an expiration date. A senior tea expert in Guangzhou said that Pu'er tea belongs to the black tea category of the six major tea categories, different from green tea, black tea, etc., Pu'er tea is easy to preserve and the older it is, the more fragrant it is, "Time has given Pu'er tea a special value, so that it not only has the value of drinking, but also circulation, collection, cultural value, and even financial attributes." The market value of aged top-quality Pu'er tea will really be as high as hundreds of thousands of tablets. ”
Second, market demand has quietly increased the value of Pu'er tea. With the passage of time, the number of well-preserved old teas is scarce, and with the improvement of the popularity of Pu'er tea and people's living standards, high-quality Pu'er tea is favored, and the scarcity makes the old tea continue to be valuable.
In the Fangcun Tea Wholesale Market, more than eighty percent of the stores operate Pu'er tea. Photo by Chao News reporter Xue Wenchun.
Finally, under the operation of financial means of capital accumulation and control of issuance, Pu'er tea gradually moved closer to the subject matter of financialization. Today, Taetea tea, which is all over the Fangcun Tea Wholesale Market, can be described as the originator of "financial tea". Around 2007, Wu Yuanzhi, the founder of Taetea Tea, entered the market with capital and created the "Haozi Tea" series with high-profile publicity packaging and limited distribution. The above-mentioned experts revealed that at present, there are more than 2,000 Taetea distributors across the country.
Just like the capital market, Pu'er tea has gradually derived from the primary market, the secondary market, as well as issuers, investors, brokers, first-class systems and trading platforms. However, at present, there is no formal tea trading market in China, and the delivery of "financial tea" in the market has been in the gray area for a long time.
However, the above-mentioned experts believe that the long-term and effective operation of Taetea tea relies on two product lines, "It has a long history, it is exquisite to make tea, and some products do have enough value, and there are consumers in the market to buy it, which is 'consumption tea';."At the same time, it also has a 'financial tea' that only circulates in the hands of investors. ”
Taetea store. Photo by Chao News reporter Xue Wenchun.
In recent years, as the traditional operating profits have become increasingly meager, individual tea companies have imitated the development path of large manufacturers and poured into a single "financial tea" track, and the peak of roasted tea has reappeared. Li Ying, who has been running Pu'er tea for 10 years, admits that the "consumption tea" business is becoming more and more difficult, "There are almost no people in the market, and they usually only earn one or two hundred yuan by selling a piece of tea." "Fangcun Tea City, which is the most prosperous in the entire wholesale market, is now idle with 20% of shops. The sharp decline in the number of tea merchants has led to the inability of incremental funds to be sustained, and then the "financial tea" thunderstorm incidents have emerged one after another.
On December 6, "Guangzhou Liwan Release" issued an article saying that unlike the peak of roasted tea in 2007 and 2014, the peak of roasted tea in 2021 showed signs of volume first. Investors need to keep in mind that roasting tea is not an investment game, but a high-risk "gambling trap".
According to the analysis of the above-mentioned experts, historically, the hype of the Pu'er tea industry has driven the short-term prosperity of the market and pushed the popularity of Pu'er tea to the altar, but in the long run, it not only damages the market image, but also affects the healthy development of the tea industry.
Idle shops in Fangcun Tea City. Photo by Chao News reporter Zhang Rong.
Focusing only on the present, ignoring long-term risks can lead to bitter consequences
Although the "financial tea" frequently explodes, it is often difficult to file a case. In the past half month, hundreds of Changshi tea franchisees and ** went to the Public Security Bureau to report the case, and the reply given by the local ** was: This is the spontaneous market behavior of tea merchants, and it is recommended to go to the manufacturer to negotiate and solve it by themselves.
Roasted tea is similar to house speculation, and the rise and fall of housing prices is a market behavior, and tea is the same reason. Investment itself is risky, you can't make money and steal fun, and if you lose, you will discuss the law. Wang Cihui, president of the Guangdong Tea Chamber of Commerce, said.
"Financial Tea" captures the greed of human nature, and those who enter the game are lucky to think that they are not the last stick. Li Ying described herself as "on top", "I knew it was a gamble, but I didn't expect the manufacturer to stop playing so soon." ”
The bitter consequences of pursuing high returns and ignoring long-term risks lie ahead – from the perspective of civil cases, it is indeed difficult to defend rights. In the view of Wang Wenhao, a partner at Tahota Law Firm, the Changshicha team has deliberately avoided legal risks, such as the purchase and sale contract signed with the franchisee without the word "promise".
In the Fangcun Tea Wholesale Market, the management department hung up a banner of vigilance against "** repurchase". Photo by Chao News reporter Xue Wenchun.
'Financial tea' with investment attributes is no longer a consumer product in the traditional sense, but as a financial product, it has not been authorized and approved by the relevant state departments. Gong Nan, a senior partner at Beijing Braim Law Firm, said that according to the transaction process, "financial tea" may be suspected of fund-raising fraud and other criminal offenses.
Guangzhou Liwan Release" issued a document directly pointing out that the "financial tea" that prevails in the tea market basically belongs to the traditional "drip ball bureau", which is a new type of "Ponzi" and reminds the public that when tasting and collecting tea, they should focus on tea culture and the value of tea itself, reject "financial tea" speculation, and prevent the risk of illegal fundraising.
Selling an item of low value to consumers in a way that implies a super-high return has constituted an illegal act of disrupting the market order. Wang Wenhao believes that the local government should be responsible, "it should be rectified, punished and punished, and determined to regulate the chaos." ”
Fangcun Tea Wholesale Market. Photo by Chao News reporter Xue Wenchun.
Fangcun has become what others call a panic village. Li Ying admitted frankly that although she had made money from "financial tea" before, she knew that "this is unhealthy, money is not earned like this." ”
Like many tea merchants, Li Ying also hopes that the trend of roasting tea will be curbed, "otherwise, more people will follow the example of Changshi tea." "At that time, who will drink this cup of "bitter tea"?
(Li Ying, Wang Bin, and Lu Hongli are pseudonyms in the article).
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