18th Hunan Tea Industry Expo Wraps up with Over 700 Mln CNY in Transactions

2026-09-15

The 18th Hunan Tea Industry Expo concluded in Changsha on September 14. According to statistics from this year's expo organizer, during the four-day event, the total transaction volume through online and offline channels amounted to 709 million CNY, comprising 197 million CNY from on-site transactions, 267 million CNY from online transactions, and 245 million CNY from intended orders.

This year's expo has achieved over 100 purchase and sales intentions and marketing cooperation agreements, further expanding sales channels for tea enterprises within the province and bringing new consumption and deep-processing business models into the traditional tea industry. Among these, emerging sectors such as the new Chinese-style tea drink supply chain stood out, with substantial intended orders.

Bustling scene at the 18th Hunan Tea Expo. (Photo provided by the Hunan Tea Industry Association)

At the expo, over 10 kinds of bottled tea drinks from Hunan caught visitors' attention, including Anhua dark tea, Baojing golden tea, Guzhang black tea, and Yueyang yellow tea. The new-style tea drink market holds huge potential, said Chen Juan, chairwoman of Hunan Xiangye Qingcui Food and Beverage Co., Ltd. The company's "Xiangye (Hunan tea leaves)" brand highlights health benefits with its portable bottle design tailored to consumer demand.

At the "Shaoyang Red" pavilion, Hunan Gulou Xuefeng Yunwu Tea Co., Ltd. showcased a range of tea-food homology products, such as green tea noodles and black tea cold jelly. Chairwoman Xiao Donghong introduced that the company's tea-food homology products have drawn over 20,000 local residents into the tea industry, boosting their incomes and supporting rural revitalization.

At the pavilion of Sangzhi, Zhangjiajie, novel offerings like white tea ice cream and white tea shortbreads appealed to young visitors. Zhen Xia, general manager of Zhangjiajie Zhenhao Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., said that the company focuses on its core Sangzhi white tea business while developing new-style tea drink brands, expanding from traditional teahouses into a "tea+" diversified model. "I used to visit the expo alone, but this year I came with my kid. I bought him a white tea ice cream — it tasted quite special," said Zhou Feng, a Changsha resident.

New-style tea drinks are favored by visitors at the expo. (Photo provided by the Hunan Tea Industry Association)

This year's expo drew over 1,500 tea-related enterprises from within and beyond Hunan, along with professional purchasers, distributors, practitioners, and the public, receiving more than 100,000 visits. The event featured a variety of tea culture activities, including Hunan tea brand promotion and matchmaking event, the Colorful Hunan Tea Contest, parent-child study tours, tea wellness demonstrations, intangible cultural heritage tea craft shows, and influencers' tea expo tours. The event distributed one million CNY in dedicated consumption subsidies to boost end-market spending.

According to a spokesperson from the expo organizer, the growing influence of the Hunan tea brand matrix is clarifying development paths for emerging sectors like tea technology, tea wellness, tea culture tourism, and new-style tea drinks. This has injected fresh momentum into extending, supplementing, and strengthening the tea industry chain, boosting comprehensive revitalization of the tea-growing regions and driving the high-quality development of Hunan's tea industry.

This article is from Hunan Provincial Government. www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Pang Yuehui

Chinese source: Chinanews