Tea can be found everywhere in Taiwan, from hand-rock stores, canned goods, and e-commerce channels, all kinds of brand positioning are available. fong cha was established more than a year ago and has achieved a good result of profit and loss, not only from the network to the Regent Boutique, but also this year's Twin Cities Forum, became the representative of the goods selected by the city of Taipei, sent to the mayor of Shanghai as a gift of exchange.

The man behind Fong Cha, Tien Ting-fung, is a former record label owner who now wants to help Taiwan's cultural and creative industries by going back to basics instead of resting on his entertainment laurels. He attributes Fong Cha's uniqueness to the success of the brand's "positioning".

He never drank tea, but he was convinced by the King of Tea.

The founding of Fong Cha can be said to be a matter of chance. One time, a friend of Tien's took him to Huadong, where he had the chance to visit Chen Xi-ching, who was the "King of Tea" who won the only national tea competition in Taiwan. He had accumulated more than 30 years of tea planting and making skills, and as soon as he saw his friend's visit, he immediately took out his private tea for Tien Tingfeng to taste.

"I am not a tea drinker, because I used to be unable to sleep all night when I drank tea..." Tian Dingfeng, who watched the tea king's generous offer of oolong tea, thought to himself, "It's over! He thought to himself, "Oh no! I may not have to sleep tonight. Unexpectedly, Tian Dingfeng slept surprisingly well that night, and the next day he hurriedly went to ask Chen Xieqing what kind of magic could make the tea so sweet and not cause insomnia.

An unintentional visit led to the cooperation between Tien Ting Fung (right) and Chen Xiqing (left), the King of Tea.

Good tea is not lonely, spend a year brewing the brand

The caffeine in a really good tea won't keep you awake..." Chen explains, "The soul of marketing, which used to package artists in the recording industry, has suddenly crept into Tien's mind. He thought to himself, "It's a shame that this sweet tea, which follows natural farming methods, has not been packaged by a brand for so long!

In particular, tea production emphasizes on meticulous workmanship, from kneading to roasting in 9 stages, the profound work of a good tea master can be said to be the best way to enhance the flavor of a tea leaf.

Initially, Tea King was quite resistant to establishing a brand, so Tien spent a whole year visiting Taitung from time to time. In the end, the cooperation came from the trust between people.

"TheAt first we made tea and chatted, and then he even cooked for us..."When a brand's original purpose is not for profit but for mission, the feeling of human interaction is like drinking tea, the moment of entry is often the most direct and sweetest.

Positioning the brand's character, Fong Cha demonstrates its boutique spirit.

After negotiating the partnership, Fong Cha started to go to the market. What to do when there is no brand awareness in the market? Tien Ting Fung, in his usual marketing efforts, realized that the market is not as bad as the quality of cheap tea leaves, but rather the brand's path is narrowed by the cultural and creative style of the tea. Therefore, Fong Cha positioned itself as a "boutique tea" from the very beginning, appealing to the high-end market and making tea-making approachable.

In the early stage of brand marketing, the story of the King of Tea was used as a word-of-mouth topic, and the brand took the initiative to allow channels to approach the company for cooperation. At that time, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi A9 International Boutique invited to set up a temporary counter, and in three months, the sales were 300% higher than the target sales. other channels came to the door one after another, and the market conversation gradually heated up, and then the Crystal Hotel also came to the door, and recently opened Fong Cha's first image store in the Regent Boutique.

Topawards Asia Recognized for Quality in Design Details

Before deciding on Fong Cha's packaging design, Tien found that other brands were either of unknown origin, or the packaging had no design sense, or the brand had no connection to Taiwan.

Therefore, Fong Cha decided to firmly link these three to create a reputation as the King of Tea. At the same time, he had artist Nio Ni design an illustration of the tea fields from Luno in Taitung to Dayuling in Hualien, showing the four tea heights in illustrative form, and at the same time, the four packaging can be synthesized to create a picture of the scenery of Hualien, Taiwan.

This design was awarded the "Packaging Material Excellence Award" at this year's Topawards Asia, a global design competition. The competition was not an unsolicited application, but a secret judging process by industry authorities, so it was not easy to win the award.

But not complacent with the existing results, Fong Cha team even launched the second wave of products: flower tea, find Taiwanese flower farmers, high cost of production belongs to Taiwan's flower tea, the product was launched by the Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-zhe, taken as a gift exchange for the Twin Cities Forum.

Mayor Ko Wen-chieh of Taipei City presented Fong Cha to Tiehui Weng, Vice Mayor of Shanghai City, at the 2017 "Twin Cities Forum".

Fong Cha demonstrates to the market that cultural innovation is possible in Taiwan.

After Tien Ting-fung has invested in the cultural and creative industry, he is not afraid to admit that there is nothing wrong with small cultural and creative bazaars, but young people lack resources, so he hopes that Fong Cha will take another demonstrative path, proving that culture and innovation can be tolerated. In addition to good products, it needs to be supported by design and marketing, so that it can be expected to go out to the world as a high-quality product.

"TheDo your best in every detail. You can't expect to win awards or make money, but if you do it right in every detail, you will get more than you expected..."Tien Ting-Fung, who used to be the driving force behind the artist's recordings, is now dreaming even bigger and wants to promote Taiwan's tea culture to the world.