At first glance, the global tea market appears “stable and familiar.” Yet beneath the surface, it is undergoing a clear transformation: consumers are no longer buying tea merely to drink it, but to purchase peace of mind, origin stories, and personalized experiences. As a result, the growth of the tea industry in the coming years will not come from selling more volume, but from selling what the market is actually willing to pay for.
According to Technavio, the global tea market is projected to grow by approximately USD 19.9 billion during 2024–2029 (CAGR ~5.5%), driven primarily by demand for “health-oriented” beverages and diversified flavor profiles [1]. Within this landscape, the specialty tea segment is growing faster than the market average because it targets the domain of “value-added”: teas identified by region, garden, season, and producer, and packaged as cultural products rather than anonymous raw materials [2], [3].
In many developed markets, “specialty” no longer refers solely to leaf quality, but to an entire system of standards and language: single origin, single garden, controlled processing, residue transparency, labor transparency, and environmental impact transparency. Buyers increasingly use these criteria as filters of trust in an era of supply-chain disruption and information overload.
Sales channels are also shifting—from reliance on importers and wholesale distribution toward e-commerce, subscription models, and experiential retail (workshops, tastings, tea pairing). As channels change, pricing power changes with them. Brands that control their narrative and quality data move closer to end consumers, capturing significantly higher margins [4].
Where Does the “Value” of Specialty Tea Reside?
Observing countries that are ahead in specialty tea development reveals three recurring “value axes.”
The first axis is verifiable origin.
In Japan, Taiwan, and China, many high-end teas are identified with remarkable precision: region, altitude, cultivar, season, plucking method, and producer. Tea becomes a “profile” rather than just a “package.” The more premium the tea, the thicker and richer the profile.
The second axis is processing technology for consistency.
Specialty tea is not necessarily “fully handcrafted.” On the contrary, many successful tea makers combine craftsmanship with systems that control temperature, humidity, and oxidation/fermentation time to stabilize flavor profiles across batches, reducing the risk of inconsistency. Reviews on tea product diversification consistently highlight the role of post-harvest management and processing technology in expanding value-added portfolios (premium teabags, cold brew, RTD, flavored teas, gift sets, etc.) [5].
The third axis is lifestyle-driven innovation.
Specialty tea is not limited to high-end matcha or oolong. It includes functional teas (sleep, digestion, beauty), convenient cold brews, “clean-label” bottled teas as alternatives to sugary drinks, and tea integrated into cocktails and desserts. Once tea enters the modern F&B ecosystem, its value is no longer measured by “kilograms of dry leaves,” but by “usage occasions” and “consumption contexts.”
Where Is Vietnam on the Global Tea Map?
Vietnam is a significant tea exporter, yet the familiar narrative persists: high volume, low value. For many years, Vietnamese tea exports have concentrated on bulk segments—supplying raw material for blends or foreign brands. The WTO Center has explicitly identified this as Vietnam’s “export identity challenge”: strong in production and raw material regions, but weak in value positioning and branding in premium segments [6]. World Tea News similarly notes Vietnam’s ambition to move deeper into the specialty market, while acknowledging that this journey requires systematic quality standardization, storytelling, and commercialization capability [7].
Crucially, Vietnam does not lack resources for specialty tea. We have ancient high-altitude Shan Tuyet tea trees, diverse microclimates, skilled tea makers, and powerful community stories. What is lacking is the transformation of these resources into coherent product systems and market systems. In many places, tea is still sold as an agricultural commodity, whereas specialty tea must be sold as a “work with a dossier”—standards, channels, experiences, and a community of drinkers.
How Is Technology Reshaping the Tea Industry?
If specialty tea is fundamentally a “trust-based” market, technology is increasingly the means of converting trust from sentiment into data.
One technological layer involves traceability and supply-chain transparency: QR codes, digital farm logs, batch data, and digital certifications. A second layer involves AI and machine learning for grading and identification. Recent studies show that combining spectral data (e.g., NIR/Raman) with machine-learning models can distinguish the geographical origin of teas (such as Pu-erh) with high accuracy, moving toward a “digital birth certificate” for each batch [8].
For Vietnam, this opens a highly practical pathway: if ancient Shan Tuyet tea is to enter the specialty map, its story must be accompanied by evidence—at minimum, traceability and batch-level quality dossiers, gradually advancing toward data-driven grading systems.
That said, we emphasize that technology cannot replace the spirit of tea. Technology serves one purpose: reducing risk and increasing reliability at scale. Specialty cannot rely on “a few excellent batches”; it must be able to replicate quality, replicate experience, and replicate trust when entering distant markets.
Vietnamese Specialty Tea: The Biggest Opportunity Starts with a Change in Mindset
In Vietnam, the main bottleneck rarely lies in machinery or raw material shortages. It lies in our habit of answering the question: “How many tons?” while the specialty market asks: “Who made this batch, where, in which season, how, and why is it valuable?”
When the question changes, the business model must change accordingly.
Instead of exporting raw materials, specialty tea must move toward a “small lot – high trust – high margin” model: small batches with thick dossiers, where value lies not in volume but in identification and consistent storytelling. Packaging should no longer be treated as the final step, but as an integral part of the product and experience. Beyond selling tea, producers must sell an ecosystem: workshops, tasting sets, tea pairing with local cuisine, tea tourism in highland regions, and direct-to-consumer cross-border channels.
Viewed this way, ancient Shan Tuyet tea is not merely “good tea,” but a cultural–ecological asset. High-quality oolong is not just an export commodity, but a platform for premium beverage innovation. Most importantly, Vietnamese specialty tea can become a compelling example of how Vietnam shifts from “exporting more” to “exporting with identity.”
Image source: eater.com
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References
[1] Technavio, “Tea Market… 2024–2029 Forecast,” 2024/2025.
[2] SkyQuest, “Specialty Tea Market… Size, Share & Forecast,” 2024. (MarketResearch.com)
[3] Fortune Business Insights, “Specialty Tea Market…,” 2024. (Technavio)
[4] Asia Food Journal, “Specialty teas adaptation… changing consumer preferences,” 2024. (Tridge)
[5] Agriculture Institute, “Product diversification & value addition in tea industry,” (accessed 2026). (World Tea News)
[6] WTO Center, “Creating an export identity for Vietnamese tea,” 2024/2025. (The Business Research Company)
[7] World Tea News, “Vietnam sets ambitious targets… global specialty market,” 2024. (Nature)
[8] C. Shao et al., “Intelligent geographical origin traceability of Pu-erh tea based on multispectral feature fusion,” Food Chemistry, vol. 492, 2025. (sciencedirect.com)