u/Medium_Internal_8062

Been extensively researching some chinese sources about the Tea market this year along and I've watched countless mardarin livestreams in China - wanted to summarize some of my findings for the community. So 2026 can be summarized as a bear market for the Tea markets in China - especially for the high end / ancient tree markets. This is a really good clean-up for the entire market as it was originally rife with fraud / deceptive livestreams that marketed terrace farmed teas as luxury high end gu shu teas. I feel like the entire industry is changing for the better

1. luxury markets are moving a lot slower - Chinese spending on luxury goods in general have dropped, so tea is no exception. I've been tracking taobao tea leaderboards for a while. Last year top leaders would be selling 300,000 RMB + in tea per night and now numbers have dropped significantly to ~ 30,000 for top sellers on some slow nights.

2. in June 2026 CCTV Financial Investigation 财经调查 exposed the widespread scams on livestreaming channels. The exposed livestream operations for lying about their revenue share with farmers and blatant tea fraud - where teas such as Bingdao Old Village would go up for as low as 733 RMB / KG when real prices are 16,000 RMB/kg. This has cause channels such as YiYao tea to completely change their business model and move away from "buying cheap from tea farmers" to producing their own teas. This has shaken a lot of consumers out of the buying tea online.

3. My personal contact in 勐海 stated that the streets are pretty much empty and the trading scene is pretty much decimated (I can provide photos if this community is interested). He's also taking about medium sized businesses dumping stock to stay afloat.

Overall this is actually really good for the average buyer as prices are going down.