世界上很多語言中“茶”這個詞都源自漢語，說明古代中國茶的影響和地位。但是，今天中國茶在世界上已經失去了其地位。英國《金融時報》網站9月15日刊載Tom Miller文章 Why foreigners are beating China’s tea-makers on their home turf(為何外國人能在中國人自己的地盤上打敗中國茶商？)，摘要如下（英語原文附後）： 

　　中國有理由為自己是茶葉之鄉感到驕傲。茶是世界最著名飲品。在中斷100年後，中國最近重新從印度手中奪回茶葉大國的桂冠，成為世界上最著名的茶葉生產和消費國。

　　但是，沒能打造出世界名茶的遺憾一直令這個茶葉之鄉感到失望。

　　無論在國內還是國外，中國茶葉品牌都很難和外國競爭者媲美。中國茶葉生產面臨的挑戰與一系列中國其他工業所面臨的一樣：產品質量問題、國內過度競爭問題、在國外市場價格提不上去和利潤微薄問題以及品牌弱等問題。

　　引起這些問題的根本原因很簡單：過度市場分割。

　　問題始於茶園。中國中部、南部和西部都有茶葉種植區，有大約800萬茶農從事茶葉種植，但大部分都是以家庭為單位的小茶園。把小茶園連成大片茶園的計劃受到中國土地法規的制約，因為土地法規只賦予農民耕種權，不能出售土地。 結果是，中國茶葉生產工業化程度遠遠落後於經濟不如中國發達的肯尼亞和印度等國家。在中國最大的茶葉產地和最富裕的浙江省，小型茶園超過100萬個，每個占地不到0.2公頃。

　　對分散在各處的數以百萬計的茶園進行質量監控幾乎是不可能的，中國茶葉出口商不斷因此遇到茶葉質量不符合外國安全標準的麻煩。中國茶葉在國際市場的售價僅為平均每公斤2美元，印度茶葉的均價是2.7美元，而受到高度好評的斯里蘭卡茶葉均價為3.4美元。

　　如果中國茶葉質量不能得到普遍提高，中國的出口茶葉將繼續在國際市場上賣不到好價錢，而這首先需要進行茶園和茶葉加工企業兼併。

　　在國內，數以千計的茶商和品牌激烈競爭導致市場份額細碎，利潤微薄。

　　但是，特殊茶葉並不會給中國帶來國際品牌知名度。要想達到目的，還要進行茶園工業化並採取更為高超的營銷手段。

　　儘管中國有世界歷史最悠久的茶園，但它才剛開始打造現代茶葉工業。國內茶葉公司要實現規模化生產，擁有品牌推廣經驗，從而令中國茶的價值得到充分體現，要做到這些要走的路還很長。

　　與此同時，高額利潤正在被強大的外國品牌占有，它們銷售的是方便的生活方式。

Why foreigners are beating China’s tea-makers on their home turf
By Tom Miller
China is rightly proud of being the home of tea, the world’s most popular drink. Celebratory cups of cha were sipped when China recently regained from India its historical position as the world’s pre-eminent tea producer and consumer after a 100-year hiatus.
But the country’s failure to produce a single internationally recognised tea brand is a source of frustration for cheerleaders of the native Camellia sinensis leaf.
Both at home and abroad, Chinese tea brands struggle to compete with foreign competitors. In China, Unilever’s Lipton brand has a market-leading share three times that of its closest local rival.
“Why is Lipton more powerful than 70,000 Chinese tea companies?” lamented a recent article in a Beijing newspaper.
The challenges facing China’s tea industry are the same as those facing a host of Chinese industries: product quality issues; excessive competition in the domestic market; low prices and meagre earnings abroad; and weak branding.
The root cause of these weaknesses is simple: extreme market fragmentation.
The problem begins on the tea plantations. Around 8m farmers work on plantations across the tea-growing areas of central, southern and western China, mostly tending tiny household plots. Consolidation of the land into larger plantations is constrained by China’s land laws, which prevent farmers from owning – and therefore selling – their land.
The result is that China’s tea industry is far less industrialised than in less economically developed countries such as Kenya or India. In Zhejiang, one of China’s largest tea-growing and richest provinces, there are over 1m smallholdings, each averaging less than 0.2 hectares.
Monitoring quality across millions of scattered tea gardens is an impossible task, and Chinese tea exporters have consistently had trouble meeting foreign safety standards. Chinese tea sells for an average of just US$2 per kg on international markets, compared with US$2.70 for Indian tea or US$3.40 for highly regarded Sri Lankan leaves.
Chinese exporters will not get consistently good prices for their tea in international markets until quality controls are improved across the board, which first requires far greater consolidation of plantations and tea processing factories.
At home, fierce competition among thousands of producers and brands translates into puny market shares and slim profits. Chinese teas are traditionally sold by type and place of origin, rather than by brand, and every region has its own local favourite.
Leading brands like Lipton, on the other hand, understand that creating mass value depends on nationwide marketing and an efficient, integrated distribution network. Lipton sources cheap tea from independent producers, packages it into teabags, and markets its distinctly average “Yellow Label” brew at an outrageous mark-up.
It’s not great tea, but it is great business.
In China’s highly fragmented retail market, no national brand has emerged to knock Lipton off its perch. Instead, premium players selling organic teas are attempting to carve out lucrative niches, both at home and abroad.
Take, for example, the tea grown by the Hunan Tea Company on White Cloud Mountain in the southern province of Hunan, where the warm, wet climate and the deep red-brown soil is perfect for cultivating quality tea leaves.
Behind a copse of dark green conifers, bees buzz lazily over neat rows of shiny tea bushes soaking up the summer sun. A list of rules pinned to a board instructs tea-pickers not to keep long fingernails or to powder their faces; smoking is banned. Instead of pesticides, bug-zappers protect the crop from leafhoppers and other tea-loving pests.
When these virgin leaves are picked next spring, one batch will be shipped to Japan and sold as high-grade organic tea under the exclusive Kaito Brothers label; another will be packaged for the domestic market under the award-winning Guanyuan brand, priced at a hefty US$100 for two small 10g boxes.
Wealthy Japanese and Chinese tea drinkers will happily spend hundreds of dollars on the best spring-picked leaves, much as Western oenophiles splash out on a good bottle of wine.
But speciality teas will not bring China the international brand recognition it craves. For that to happen, widespread industrial consolidation and far more sophisticated marketing are needed.
Despite having the oldest tea producer in the world, China has only begun to create a modern tea industry. It has a long way to go before local tea companies reach the economies of scale and branding expertise needed to capture the full value of their product.
In the meantime, the big revenues will be scooped up by strong foreign brands selling convenience and lifestyle. Anyone for a cup of Yellow Label?