African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1204 Tea Market
India has proved that having a large population is a great thing. Even if it is difficult to produce good bamboo shoots from bad bamboo, an excess of bamboo shoots can make up for the quality disadvantage to a certain extent. At least people cannot do without rigid needs such as food, clothing, housing and transportation. This is the charm of a large market with a population of 300 million.

There are so many good things at the East African Expo that cars are just an appetizer. There are thousands of technological products provided by East Africa alone at this East African Expo, and if other products are included, the number will reach tens of thousands.

In addition to East Africa, exhibits from other countries also have their own styles and characteristics, attracting the attention of many tourists and businessmen.

The Far Eastern Empire State Pavilion.

"This is a kind of tea produced in the southeastern mountainous area of ​​the Far East Empire. Compared with our East African tea, it is sweeter but less fragrant. However, they both have their own flavors..." said an East African from Bagamoyo after tasting the free tea.

There is no doubt that the tea from the Far Eastern Empire is very popular among the people of East Africa, and there is a large base of tea-drinking population in East Africa.

Although East Africa is a major tea producer in the world, it cannot get rid of the huge disadvantage of the small number of tea varieties in East Africa. After decades of accumulation, East Africa has only screened and cultivated less than 20 tea varieties with good taste and suitable for domestic cultivation.

However, there are nearly a hundred kinds of Far Eastern Empire tea participating in this East African Expo alone, which greatly satisfies the curiosity and taste buds of the East African people who come here to visit.

Among the participating tea merchants, Huizhou tea is the most numerous. It is worth mentioning that due to time constraints, many companies are still arriving, so the exhibits of the East African Expo are still increasing.

East African tea lover Yadras said: "my country's tea industry has only been around for a few decades, while the Far Eastern Empire's tea culture and history spans thousands of years, so in terms of the number of varieties, it is indeed difficult for East Africa to compare with the Far Eastern Empire."

"Another point is that the climate and geographical complexity of the Far Eastern Empire are far more complex than ours. This is also the basic advantage for tea variety cultivation, which means there are more possibilities. And this is indeed the case. In the Far Eastern Empire, there are many regional tea varieties."

There are many factors that affect the growth of tea, and the Far Eastern Empire’s unique geographical advantages are one of the important reasons why the Far Eastern Empire became the world’s tea kingdom.

In comparison, this is also a disadvantage of East Africa. Although the climate in East Africa is suitable for growing tea, the microclimate and topography are not as complex as those of the Far East Empire.

It can also be said that the potential for tea cultivation in East Africa is far less developed than that of the Far Eastern Empire. The history of tea cultivation in East Africa is too short and there are many competitors for tea.

For example, Kenya, the region in East Africa that produces the highest quality tea, is also the region with the best conditions for growing coffee in East Africa. In fact, the two beverages are in competition with each other.

"However, my country's tea planting is ahead of India. Although India has a history of tea planting for hundreds of years, they introduced fewer varieties and tea-making techniques at that time, and the complexity of India's climate and environment is not as complex as that of my country."

The history of tea cultivation in India dates back to the 18th century, and it has a history of a hundred years. It seems very long, but it is only compared to this rising star with a short history in East Africa.

East Africa can still reverse this gap of nearly a hundred years in a short period of time through hard work, and in fact it has done so.

In 1914, although East Africa's tea exports still ranked third in the world, the gap with India had been greatly narrowed, and in terms of variety quantity and quality, it became second only to the Far Eastern Empire.

"Of course, the most important thing is that the rapid development of our country's industry and technology in recent years has made the scale and scientific cultivation of tea far surpass that of the Far East Empire and India."

In modern tea cultivation, especially with the advent of the industrial age, the key to whether a product can cover the international market on a large scale lies in whether it can achieve large-scale industrial production.

Before East Africa, the world's third largest tea producer, emerged, India undoubtedly had an absolute advantage in this regard. The situation changed at the beginning of this century. With the explosion of industry and technology in East Africa, the development of the tea industry in East Africa also ushered in a new round of qualitative changes. On the one hand, the technology of tea cultivation, planting, picking and other technologies has made continuous breakthroughs, and the mechanization rate of tea gardens has been greatly improved. On the other hand, tea processing has rapidly realized more advanced modern factories to replace the original small workshops, which has been more guaranteed in terms of quality and taste, stabilizing market sales and consolidating the development of brand image awareness.

Through the development over the years, East African tea has gained a firm foothold in the international market, opened up and stabilized the long-developed Central and Eastern European market, and is very popular in countries such as Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia.

There is no doubt that the country most affected by the rise of East African tea is India, and the competition between the two countries is the most intense.

Although the Far Eastern Empire is the world's largest tea producer, its domestic market is stable and huge, but its performance in overseas markets is not outstanding, so it is difficult to pose a threat to Indian and East African tea.

Moreover, as the world's third most tea-loving country after the Far Eastern Empire and the United Kingdom, East Africa, in addition to its own tea, also imports a large amount of tea from the Far Eastern Empire to meet its own needs.

Although East Africans certainly don't like drinking tea as much as the British, East African tea lovers are obviously more particular than the British.

After all, East Africa has been deeply influenced by the Far Eastern Empire culturally, so its understanding of tea is second only to that of the people of the Far Eastern Empire.

Although East Africa also produces good tea, it lacks historical heritage in terms of high-quality tea varieties and is unable to fully meet the diverse needs of its own tea drinkers, so importing tea from the Far East Empire has become inevitable.

As for India, its tea problem is similar to that of East Africa, with few varieties and overly uniform tastes. Therefore, in the East African tea drinking contempt chain, Indian tea is at the absolute bottom of the three countries.

This is easy to understand. Just like in the past, Indian tea had an absolute dominant share in the international market, but it was extremely difficult for Indian tea to gain recognition from the Far East Empire.

After all, tea culture does not exist in India. It is just a purely tropical economic crop. Although tea cultivation in East Africa also tends to its economic attributes, East African tea culture also exists.

Therefore, in the perception of East African people, tea from the Far East Empire is a high-end product, East Africa is a mid-range product, India is a low-end product, and as for other countries, they are completely inferior.

This subjective idea is naturally influenced by national sentiment, but it also reflects the tremendous development of East African tea in recent years. After all, East African tea is really a mess, and it is impossible for East Africans to shamelessly put their own tea above that of India.

In comparison, Indians are truly ignorant of themselves. They brag even more than East Africans. Among the Indian population, their tea is the best in the world. This is indeed true if we only look at the current export volume. However, the large export volume is entirely due to their advantage in occupying the British colonial market, not because Indian tea is really gifted.

And as mentioned before, although tea is one of East Africa's important economic crops, East Africa has many choices in the beverage field, which to a large extent divides East Africa's investment in the tea industry.

In terms of beverages, East Africa has shown a clear state of diversified development. In the past, the three major traditional beverages in the world, tea, coffee and cocoa, all have corresponding finished products in East Africa, and they occupy a certain position in the international market, especially East African coffee, which has seen the fastest rise in reputation in recent years and has quickly captured a large market share.

As for other beverages, especially wine, soda, various sugary drinks, milk, etc., East Africa is also very outstanding.

Before the outbreak of World War I, East Africa had become the world's second largest producer and consumer of beverages, second only to the United States.

After all, East Africa has only been open for a short time, and there is still a certain gap between its market activity and that of the United States, especially in the consumer sector. The people of East Africa are obviously not as open as Americans.

(End of this chapter)