Every year, from March to the Qingming Festival, domestic spring tea is intensively listed. From the spring tea in Yibin, Sichuan at the end of February, to the white tea in Fuding, Fujian at the beginning of March, then to the Biluochun in Dongting Mountain, Suzhou at the end of March, and the Longjing in West Lake at the beginning of April, spring teas from various places are mined and listed one after another.

Reporters learned from Taobao Tmall that this year's spring tea market shows two significant trends. On the one hand, spring tea consumption has become younger and more common, with special producing areas and niche categories such as Duyun Maojian and Wuyi Mountain Cinnamon accelerating their popularity on Tmall; On the other hand, well-known spring tea producing areas and brands are accelerating going overseas through Taobao, with West Lake Longjing, Anxi Tieguanyin, and Yunnan Pu'er being hot-selling in many countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Japan.

Younger and more common, special producing areas and niche categories enter the public view

In recent years, with the popularity of the tea drinking market and social media planting, Tmall spring tea consumption has shown obvious trends of youthfulness and commonality. Platform data shows that among the original leaf tea consumer group, the number of young users aged 18-25 has increased by more than 40% year-on-year, which is one of the fastest growing user groups. With the vigorous growth of the young consumer market, words such as meal replacement, substitute, and hidden style also appear in the consumption of original leaf tea, and a batch of teas from special producing areas and niche categories are accelerating into the public view.

Taking Maojian, a green tea variety, as an example, in the past, Xinyang Maojian accounted for more than 95% of the sales volume of Taobao Tmall. This year, starting from the spring tea season, special producing areas such as Guizhou Duyun Maojian and Hubei Yichang Maojian have achieved double-digit growth year-on-year on Tmall. It is understood that the history of Duyun Maojian can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty, and its production process was selected as a representative project of intangible cultural heritage in 2022. The core producing area is located at an altitude of more than 1,500 meters. Due to the long breeding cycle of tea, the aftertaste is particularly obvious.

At the same time, niche categories that have been popularized by tea drinks in recent years have gradually opened up the mass consumer market and are welcomed by consumers. Tmall platform data shows that from January to March 2026, Fenghuang Dancong increased by 32% year-on-year, Wuyi Mountain Cinnamon increased by 93% year-on-year, and Qimen Black Tea increased by 30% year-on-year.

Wuyi Star brand mainly operates Wuyi Mountain Da Hong Pao, Wuyi Mountain Cinnamon, and Wuyi Mountain Black Tea. Lin Xiaodong, the e-commerce person in charge, said that according to Tmall store data, in the past three years, the average age of consumers has dropped by 3 years, and young users prefer common tea. Cinnamon, because of its outstanding aroma, is favored by young consumers as an entry-level rock tea. Many young people come into contact with cinnamon and other teas through milk tea brands, and after being planted, they turn to buy original leaf tea, forming a consumption transition from fragrance to water for rock tea, and will also become the main consumer group of Da Hong Pao in the future.

Lin Xiaodong mentioned that compared with other platforms, Tmall has a good shopping experience, and young consumers often buy multiple varieties of tea together after searching and entering the store, which promotes the planting and repurchase of niche categories.

Liu Xiaoyi, the person in charge of tea category on Taobao Tmall, said that the reason why special tea producing areas can quickly break out on Tmall is that on the one hand, the rapid growth of young user groups, unlike old tea drinkers over 40 years old, the consumption demands of Tmall users are tilting towards characteristics and niche; On the other hand, Tmall guides more and higher quality traffic to authentic original producing areas. Different from well-known producing areas such as Longjing and white tea, consumers still have a cognitive threshold when choosing special producing areas. This year, through the Tmall Spring Tea Season traceability activity of "Searching for Taste in Mountains and Rivers", we have cooperated with the governments of special producing areas and leading brands to help consumers choose truly good tea from small producing areas.

Light model, low threshold, Chinese tea brands sell globally through Taobao

Compared with special producing areas of spring tea hoping to reach more young consumers through Tmall, Chinese tea brands have already turned their eyes to a broader market.

In December last year, Taobao officially opened food category sales on overseas sites, and the first batch of open categories included tea, snack food, and dairy drinks. It is understood that at present, more than 30,000 tea category merchants have sold overseas through Taobao, with nearly 3.5 million commodities. Among them, there are both traditional tea commodities such as Longjing and Pu'er, and new tea drinks such as milk tea bags and tea powder.

"We used to focus on the domestic market. Taobao helped us sell tea overseas. I don't need to do any overseas operation. Just rely on a Tmall store, and I have global sales revenue," said Xu Qijun, the person in charge of West Lake Tea Tmall flagship store, about the brand's overseas experience, feeling like overtaking on a curve. During the new tea season of Longjing, the overseas sales volume of West Lake Tea on Taobao has increased by more than 30% month-on-month recently, becoming the biggest increase in new tea sales this year.

Looking at the overseas transaction areas, sales volumes in Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Korea, and other places are among the top. Although traditional tea drinks still account for most of the transactions, herbal tea and reprocessed tea are growing rapidly. Among them, reprocessed tea has increased by more than 40%, especially various milk tea bags, cold-brewed tea, and other new Chinese-style tea drinks, leading the tea category market.

Tea-related products are also selling well overseas. In tea set transactions, sales in Australia, Japan, Thailand, Kazakhstan, and other places have grown rapidly, achieving double-digit growth. Under the influence of Chinese consumers as the core purchasing group, more and more foreign consumers also experience Chinese culture through tea consumption.

In order to help merchants reduce the threshold for going overseas, Taobao will increase investment in customer service, logistics, and merchant operation this year. Taobao Tmall merchants only need to open the overseas function. After overseas users place an order, merchants can ship it to our mainland transit warehouse, and all subsequent links are guaranteed by the Taobao platform, including international logistics and transportation, as well as last-mile delivery. Yi Shan, the person in charge of Taobao Overseas Merchant Center, introduced.

It is understood that at present, Taobao has covered more than 200 countries and regions, provides free shipping services in 12 countries and regions, and provides four foreign language versions: English, Russian, Thai, and Malay. As of 2025, Taobao's overseas sales volume has maintained double-digit growth for five consecutive years, and the scale of new overseas users has increased by nearly 200% year-on-year.