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A Book with Bubble Tea (波！） - Give you a different cultural perspective in parenting, business and life
It’s clear that different cultures have distinct styles of conveying information and different perspectives on things as well. At this show, I am going to share some fantastic books from East Asia that you might not have come across in mainstream English media or on your usual bookshelves. But trust me, they're worth your time because they're fascinating and inspirational!
A Book with Bubble Tea (波！） - Give you a different cultural perspective in parenting, business and life
[East Asia This Week] EP37 - Selling warm water is a good business!? Japan's warm water boom.
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Hi everyone, welcome to the new episode of A Book with Bublity. And today is East Asia this week. In today's episode, we are going to talk about a rather surprising boom heating up the convenience store in Japan. It's the rice of Sayu, or, simply put, bottled warm water. Stay with us as we unravel the story behind this intriguing trend.
Speaker 2:Welcome to A Book with Bublity With your host, mirahi. Here I share takeaways from East Asian books on parenting, startups and self-growth. Seeking insights beyond the typical English shelf, want to be a better parent and achieve more in life? You are in the right place. Grab your bubble tea and let's dive in.
Speaker 1:Picture this you are walking through the hot drink section of a convenience store and, among the usual coffee and tea, you find something quite unexpected Bottles of warm water. This is Sayu, a product developed by a beverage giant, asahi beverages, released across Japan since November 2022. Packaged in 340ml bottles priced at a modest 113 yen, sayu has been selling like hot cake. It's just so surprising, and even surprising to Asahi as well, with sales surpassing twice the expected figure in just 3 months. For those who've ever been to Japan, you will not be surprised to find yourselves being served cold water, even on the coldest day. When I was studying there, I really didn't understand why Japanese people like drinking cold water so much, but nowadays it's different. Apart from just the usual choice of hot tea or hot coffee, you can actually now get a bottle of warm water easily from convenience store or vending machines. So who's buying Sayu? The answer might surprise you.
Speaker 1:Initially, the company targeted health and beauty conscious females, but it turned out males also account for 40% of the sales. Males tend to make their purchases more at convenient stores and, according to the product developer, hot drinks were really not that popular in convenient stores, but Sayu made a miracle there. Many customers have responded, saying sometimes I just want to drink something warm without any taste, or it's helpful for me because I just don't want to have caffeine intake, or I buy it to warm up my body in the morning. So the question now is like why sell warm water? It really seems puzzling, right. The concept might seem simple, even questionable to some. Why would a company decide to sell warm water For Asahi beverages? It was about tapping into a growing trend. The consumption of Sayu, or warm water, has been on the rise in Japan, linked to its health and beauty benefits. The rate of people who have experienced drinking warm water has been increasing year by year, from 11.8% in 2009 to 61% in 2022, approximately a five-fold increase. While Sayu is predominantly perceived as a beverage consumed by women, the rate of consumption among men in 2022 was also over half, at 54.4%.
Speaker 1:The decision to launch this product was influenced by the expanding demand for warm water and numerous customer requests for its availability for purchase whenever desired, and more and more Japanese actually believe drinking warm water can improve their blood circulation, stimulate the function of internal organs, help with bowel movements or help recover from tiredness. Recognizing the shift in consumer behavior, asahi saw an opportunity to innovate and meet a specific yet growing market demand. However, interestingly, this isn't Asahi's first venture into the warm water market. Back in 2014, they tried it already. They launched a similar product called Mount Fuji Vanadium Natural Hot Water, which unfortunately didn't meet its sales target and was discontinued after only one season.
Speaker 1:Fast forward to today and the success story of Sayu begs the question what changed? The difference actually lies in the market's readiness, of course, and the strategic makeover. They changed the product design and the naming of the product, so moving away from hot like saying hot water in Japanese hotto to a word that is more familiar to Japanese, which is Sayu, and also making the design for something looking functional like this is a bottle of warm water, you know into something that is softer, more Japanese and slightly more feminine design. The product developer shared actually a story that when they originally planned to call it Asahi Delicious Water Natural Hot Water, however, an inside company referred to it as Sayu and they started to think about, like, why isn't the product named Sayu instead? Why are we calling it hot water or hotto? Eventually, the product named was also changed to Sayu. The developer even looked up in the dictionary to check the exact definition of Sayu.
Speaker 1:Last year, sayu was a limited period product, meaning it was only meant to be sold for five months during the winter and spring season. But because it became so popular, it's like a social phenomenon in Japan. This year, when Asahi released it again, it not only made it into a regular product, meaning you can buy any time of the year it's selling like constantly all the time now but they also added an additional non-woven thermal label. This thermal label apparently helps maintain Sayu's temperature above 40 Celsius, that is, 104 Fahrenheit, for approximately 1.3 minutes longer than before. In a 10 Celsius environment, that is 50 Fahrenheit. I have to say, japanese precision always surprised me and apparently to the product developer. This 1.3 minutes is important, you know, to not drop the temperature, and it's said that Sayu will also start selling in big supermarkets soon too. So next time when you visit Japan, get yourself a bottle of warm water to try.
Speaker 1:That's it for today's episode. I hope you enjoy it. If you did, or if you did encounter Sayu in Japan, please let us know, and don't forget to subscribe and follow us. It will greatly motivate us to share more interesting content from East Asia. So bye, for now, let's continue drinking our bubble tea. Make sure it's warm Until next time. Bye.