Classic Tea Tins: 4 Color-Coded Flavors

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Jing Sheng Yu Product:Classic Tin Can Series

July 2011

The story of the tin can must be told alongside Jing Sheng Yu's original logo...

A Spark of Transformation for Jing Sheng Yu

After operating for over a year since September 2009, it became crystal clear that our existing designs—from our Corporate Identity (CI) and product packaging to our promotional materials—needed a complete overhaul if we were to break through the bottleneck we were facing. However, "cash dictates decisions." Without funding, even the best ideas couldn't be realized.

Later, by a stroke of serendipity, we were invited to set up a takeaway tea stall at the Taipei International Flora Exposition. Every day, that little stall brewed more than just tea; it brewed a ray of hope for Jing Sheng Yu's transformation.

Brand Revamp: The Logo and the Tin Can

During our six months at the Flora Expo, we finally accumulated enough surplus funds to invest in rebranding. But who should we entrust with this task of rebirth? Right around that time, I crossed paths with a designer who had ten years of experience: Huang Yi-fan, affectionately known to his friends as "Lao Wu" (Old Five). After a long career at a professional design agency, he had decided to start his own freelance practice, and Jing Sheng Yu became his very first client. We hit it off immediately at our first meeting, so I felt completely at ease handing the brand revamp project over to him. If Jing Sheng Yu’s designs have caught the market's eye over the years, Lao Wu deserves the utmost credit.

First, we tackled the logo redesign. Out of ten proposals, we selected a design featuring a "Zisha teapot." We did this for two reasons: First, the brand name "Jing Sheng Yu" had no obvious connection to "tea," and we wanted to strengthen that association in consumers' minds. Second, our Zisha teapot hand-brewed tea was already our most crucial product.

Next came the tea packaging revamp. Over the previous year or so, I had been observing and comparing customer reactions to our generic tin cans versus the white paper boxes. Most customers felt that the tin cans carried more weight, had a better texture, and offered a higher perceived value (even though both packaging options actually cost about the same). Armed with this insight, we decided to make the tin can our primary packaging format moving forward.

So, how should the design look? The ever-diligent Lao Wu presented nearly ten different concepts. While they were all undeniably beautiful, I just couldn't shake the feeling that they lacked a true connection to Jing Sheng Yu.

The Tin Can Design Inspired by Our Portable Bottle

That was the turning point. One day, much like Archimedes discovering buoyancy, I had a "Eureka!" moment in the shower. Before I had even finished washing up, I called Lao Wu naked just to pitch my idea: "Jing Sheng Yu's very first product was the portable tea bottle. It holds freshly brewed tea, featuring a black cap and a transparent body that reveals the natural, unadorned beauty of the tea's true color. Since the tin can holds unbrewed tea leaves, what if we tried inverting the proportions of the black cap and the transparent body?"

At the same time, I categorized all our Taiwanese teas into four series based on their flavor profiles, assigning four specific colors to symbolize these profiles as wrap-around stickers for the tins. Additionally, to further reinforce the connection between Jing Sheng Yu and tea, we added a repeating tea leaf pattern and the Chinese character for "tea" (茶).

After hearing me out, Lao Wu—perhaps a bit exhausted from having pitched so many concepts already—sounded slightly resigned and just replied flatly, "We can give that direction a try."

A few days later, I suspect he also hopped out of the shower mid-wash to call me naked. Normally cool and composed, he couldn't contain his excitement this time: "Check your files right now! I think this direction looks really good!"

And just like that, our classic tin can was born. Since the minimum order quantity for producing these tins was 10,000 units, we didn't want to stockpile them for too long. To increase their usage and turnover, we decided to not only pack loose leaf tea in them but also develop the more universally accepted tea bag products alongside them.

Beyond Aesthetics: A Product Must Solve the Brand's Problems

This classic tin can simultaneously solved several challenges we were facing at the time. From the perspective of brand development needs:

First, the design inspiration was drawn from our core product—the portable bottle—forging a strong connection to the brand. This ensured that our brand revamp and the introduction of new products wouldn't feel jarring or out of place to our customers.

Second, by incorporating the Chinese character for "tea" (茶) and the repeating tea leaf pattern, we were able to double down on Jing Sheng Yu’s association with tea, perfectly complementing our new Zisha teapot logo.

Color: A Crucial Element in Jing Sheng Yu’s Product Design

From a customer experience perspective:

First, the colors symbolizing our four distinct flavor profiles significantly simplify the purchasing process. For instance, customers who enjoy fruity and honey-like notes will intuitively find their gaze lingering on the pink tin cans.

Second, the design's elegant, poised, yet subtly innovative style perfectly satisfies the needs for both personal enjoyment and gifting.

As a result, this series of Classic Tin Cans has achieved our highest cumulative sales volume. Looking back, naming it the "Classic" series from the very beginning truly lives up to its name.

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