JINAN, China, Nov 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- XIAO GUAN TEA, a new kind of prestigious tea, held a grand opening ceremony for its first tea store in October. Designed by Apple Store designer Tim Kobe, the new XIAO GUAN TEA Store aims to redefine the consumer experience of Chinese tea.
Photo - https://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161101/434690
During the opening ceremony, Kobe, who together with Steve Jobs once redefined the consumer experience for IT products, talked with one of the lead designers Jinjiang Yu, innovative experience consultant Shuo Tang, consumer experience director and company partner Hong Li. Under the theme topic of "A pod breaks through a convention: Creating a new Chinese tea experience using the same philosophy as Apple Inc.", they analyzed in depth how concepts in store design integrated with the Chinese tea culture, and proposed new ideas for both the tea and design industries.
A tea store completely reimagined
A traditional Chinese tea store would be too old and outdated for today's young urban consumers. While a luxury club-style tea store would give a strong sense of distance and sterility that would keep consumers away. Different from other tea stores, the XIAO GUAN TEA Store has completely changed the Chinese consumer's impression of a "tea" brand starting from the entrance. It is simple and modern. With a black frame and transparent glass, the revolving door has combined the functions of a door with product display to immediately engage consumers.
Stepping into the store, you could see the whole area has been divided into three sections, tea library, tea bar and large screen display. There are areas separated into tea browsing, tea selection, tea purchase and tea tasting, surrounded by showcases of eight kinds of prestigious tea. They are displayed like treasures in front of consumer's eyes.
With the elements of metal, giant glass, LED displays and other standard configurations of a luxury store, the XIAO GUAN TEA store will give the first time consumer an impression of modern, high-end luxury, with desirability and convenience.
There are also detailed designs of high tech and human interfaces. For example, if a consumer is interested in one kind of tea, he/she only needs to pull out the first board to watch the introduction video of the tea. Every kind of tea leaves are kept inside vacuum glass containers and can be observed through the glass.
It was the first time for Tim Kobe to combine his international vision and taste with the traditional Chinese tea experience. His design achieved the personalized interaction between human and tea, as well as human and space. In this space, the consumer can experience tea through eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. Here, the consumer is the master.
Selling tea like selling Apple products
For the XIAO GUAN TEA store, it is not just a tea shop, or a product display center it is a place people like to stay.
It comes from the XIAO GUAN TEA brand concept which is very similar to that of Apple's: customer-oriented spaciousness that brings people the feelings of freedom, fashion and honor. What people need is a place and an atmosphere.
Lately, the Chinese tea market has been in an unclear stage without any standard. It is difficult for consumers to receive clear unified information on product and price. The XIAO GUAN TEA Company invited eight top tea masters representing the eight kinds of China's best tea to create a product representing their peak skills and exacting standards. Uniform quality standards were applied: defined origin of raw materials, limited picking time and methods, to ensure each leaf being fresh and authentic.
In addition, for the better enjoyment of drinking tea, the XIAO GUAN TEA Company invested time and money to invite a Japanese master engineer to design a small aluminium pod for just one brew of tea. After two years of effort, a new XIAO GUAN TEA is created, which ensures not only the freshness of the tea, but also a more convenient way of enjoying tea. Tea drinking has become much simpler.
Seeing the chaotic situation of the Chinese tea industry, the XIAO GUAN TEA Company becomes the first tea brand to provide not only standard products and channels of delivery, but also the ultimate tea experience. It allows the opportunity for China to transfer from a big tea producing country into a big tea brand and tea consuming country.
"With precise product positioning plus advanced marketing strategy, XIAO GUAN TEA created an innovative "consuming experience" which is very different from the traditional industry, says Jiang Mei, marketing director of the XIAO GUAN TEA company."Chinese tea has always been portrayed with traditional images. We broke the traditional way of tea selling with a brand new method, redefined and created the XIAO GUAN TEA brand experience.
"I believe our store will promote our brand on different retail platforms by the modern and international brand language. By taking the customer's perspectives, providing extremely high quality tea and achieving the ultimate consumers' experiences, we believe all these will lead the XIAO GUAN TEA to success and expose the traditional Chinese tea to the world with a brand new image."
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161101/434690
To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/apple-store-designer-tim-kobe-and-xiao-guan-tea-redefine-experience-of-chinese-tea-with-first-xiao-guan-tea-store-300354865.html
