Year-ender: New trends in Chinese consumption in 2021

Beverage

New-style tea drinks, often mingled with fruit and milk, enjoy great popularity among young people. It is not rare to see people in long queues outside of milk tea stores across the country, just for a cup of tea that costs about 30 yuan.

According to the China's Tea Beverage Report 2021, China's tea beverage market is projected to reach 764.5 billion yuan ($117.6 billion) by 2025. And freshly-made tea is likely to be the segment enjoying the fastest growth, and is expected to surge 24.5 percent year-on-year from now to 2025 to reach a market value of 340 billion yuan by then.

In addition, a rising number of health-conscious younger Chinese consumers are taking to new sparkling water in recent years. With low or no sugar and calories being the new standard, carbonated beverage sector will see a small and positive impact from the COVID-19 outbreak over the medium and long term due to their positioning as a healthy alternative to traditional carbonated soft drinks, stated a report by Mintel Group.

The size of the carbonated water market in China is estimated at 15 billion yuan in 2019 and is expected to grow to 32 billion yuan by 2025, according to Qianzhan Institute.