Factors associated with young Taiwanese people ’ s preference of green tea

The purpose of this study is to identify Japanese's green tea consumption preferences among young people in Taiwan between the age of 18-30 and assess the possible tea market opportunities for Japanese's green tea in Taiwan, among young people. Questionnaire was used to collect data which were spread to 200 university students, aged between 18-30 years. Firstly, the tea product tasting survey provided four kinds of Japanese green tea. Next, the questionnaire was divided into four parts. Findings of this study show Taiwanese young people prefer taste attribute as the main factor to selecting their tea preference, to others who choose Minamisayaka mostly as their tea preference, with Benifuuki in second place. This study also aggregates the evaluation of Japanese green tea after tea tasting.


Background
Tea is an aromatic beverage which is a hot water infusion of processed leaves of Camellia sinensis (Pinto, 2013). Tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world next to water. China and India are respectively the largest and second largest producer and consumer of tea and together account for half of world's tea production (Singh and Anita, 2012). Global tea production has been increased in the last decade, reaching 4.1 million tonnes in 2010 (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO, 2012;Zou et al., 2015;Engelhardt et al., 2016). It is the only beverage commonly served hot or cold, anytime, anywhere and for any occasion (Su and Arab, 2002;Chang, 2015).
Taiwan is famous for three main types of tea; oolong tea, black tea and green tea. The earliest record of tea trees found in Taiwan can be traced back to 1717 in Shui Sha Lian, present-day Yuchih and Puli, Nantou County. Oolongs grown in Taiwan account for about 20% of world *Corresponding author. E-mail: kimichang@dragon.nchu.edu.tw.
Authors agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License production (Drabova et al., 2012). Tea drinking is a long and well-established part of the local culture in Taiwan (Huang et al., 2006;Engelhardt et al., 2016); as an important beverage, it has been cultivated successfully for more than 120 years (Makiuchi et al., 2016). Tea production in Taiwan is decreasing, but tea consumption per capita in Taiwan is steadily increasing (Mu-Lien, 2014;International Tea Committee, 2014) because drinking green tea has been associated with many health benefits to the human body. Taiwan does not produce high volumes of tea, but its teas are well-represented in specialty tea stores and are well-known among tea connoisseur (Sharma et al., 2007;Pirina, 2004;Oze et al., 2014;Persistence Market Research Corp, 2015) The vast majority of tea produced in Taiwan is consumed in Taiwan. Taiwan has a strong tea culture, and the Taiwanese tea market is considered highly demanding; Taiwan imports some of the highest-quality oolong teas from other countries.
Recently, the Japanese government created the policy to expand green tea export to other countries and according to Takagi (2015) and Makiuchi et al. (2016) Taiwan is one of target countries for the export of green tea. Based on the preceding information, Taiwanese culture provides an increasing trend for tea consumption and a high opportunity for Japanese green tea in the Taiwan market. However, this is not substantial information regarding the consumer preference of Japanese tea among young Taiwanese consumers. For the Japanese companies to understand the consumer preference in Taiwan, this survey helps to give a clearer picture of consumer preference.

Objection and research questions
Objective 1 is to identify Japanese's green tea consumption preferences among young people in Taiwan between the ages of 18-30 years old. The research questions are given as follows: 1. What kind of Japanese green tea do young people in Taiwan like most among others, Minami-sayaki, Benifuuki, Matcha and Tea bags? 2. What is the most sensory attribute that contributes to Taiwanese young people's preference? 3. What is the sensory attribute that Taiwanese young people dislike? 4. How is the best way they prefer to consume Japanese green tea?
Objective 2 is to assess the possible tea market opportunities for Japanese green tea in Taiwan, among young people. See the research questions: 1. What is the average frequency of Taiwanese young people drinking green tea? 2. How well did Japanese green tea samples in this survey meet expectations? 3. How will they feel, if in future, they see Japanese green tea products available in the shops?

Hypothesis
According to several references, there are two expected outcomes from this research, these are: 1.Young Taiwanese people choose tea by the taste of the tea. 2.Young Taiwanese people prefer the Minamisayaka Japanese Green Tea sample, to other samples.

Purpose and significance of study
The purpose of this study is to provide some consumer preference information about Japanese green tea among young Taiwanese people. The proposed study was of value to various stakeholders that include the government, policy makers, communities, private companies, NGOs and academics alike. This is because the study provided data that reflected young Taiwanese consumer's preference regarding Japanese green tea and also helped to evaluate market value of the marketing of Japanese green tea in Taiwan.

Research design
This research was experimented by product test to target groups, performing data collection and by surveying with questionnaires, to conduct a statistical analysis to interpret results.

Sampling design
Target area is the university's students. The survey was conducted in several places within the university, such as the cafeteria, library, gymnasium, and main gate, on a time scale of around 10 days.

Instrumentation
This research was conducted using a questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into 4 parts as follows; 1) personal information: gender, age, student major 2) beverage habits and preferences: how they consume tea, reason to consume tea, what kind of tea products they most like, the way to drink tea, 3) green tea consuming: how do they like green tea, image of Japanese green tea 4) Evaluation of Japanese green tea after tea tasting: which Japanese green tea sample do they like, preferable sensation, how do they like each kind of Japanese green tea (Likert scales). 4 types of Japanese Green Tea were provided by Shizuoka Prefecture University, Japan.

Data collection method
The tea sample used 4 kinds of Japanese's green tea, namely Minamisayaka, Beni-fuuki, Matcha and Tea bags for testing, provided by Shizuoka Prefecture University, Japan. The tea preparation procedure is as follows: 1. Minamisayaka: Use 4 grams of loose tea leaf then pour 150 ml hot water, 70-80˚C and wait for 90 s. 2. Benifuuki: Use the same method used for Minami-sayaka 3. Matcha: Use 1 gram of Matcha powder then, pour on a little hot water,70-80˚C and stir to dissolve it. Then pour on more hot/cold water to fill cup. Total amount was 150 ml. 4. Tea Bag: Use 500 ml of PET bottle water (room temperature) then, put a tea bag into PET bottle. Move the tea bag 10 times with up-anddown motion during infusion. Wait until the color become light green in approximately 5 min.
The tea is approximately 30 ml of brewed green tea poured into a paper cup. It was served by Tea bag, Minami-sayaka, Beni-fuuki and Matcha, respectively. Finally, the conducting survey procedure is to provide the 4 kinds of tea in a stand-booth, located in a particular place, being the defined research area. Then, the respondents tried the 4 kinds of tea in that tea tasting event. Thereafter, they filled out the research questionnaire.

Statistical analysis
The statistics and analytical tools that were used for analysing the data is SPSS software by Chi-Square. Figure 1 shows that the respondents' gender distribution consisted of 51% females and 49% males. It means that 102 females and 98 males participated in the survey.

Descriptive statistics
In Figure 2, 60 respondents were 18-22 years old, 110 respondents were between 23-26 years old, and 30 respondents were between 27-30 years old. It means that more than a half of respondents were in the second age category, which was between 23-26 years old. Figure 3 shows that the education distribution of the respondents, concentrated on the Bachelor Degree. This means more than a half of respondents (115 people) had Bachelor Degree and were taking a Master Program in NCHU. In addition, respondents who had Senior High School Certificate, Master Degree and Doctoral Degree accounted for 29.5% (59 people); 11.5% (23 people); and 1.5% (3 people) respectively. Table 1 shows the city or county of the respondents' origin. Fortunately, almost all cities or counties in Taiwan were represented by the respondents, so the differences were only from their distribution. From Table 1, it can be seen obviously that most of the respondents came from Kaohsiung (21 people). Then, there were four cities as the origin of the respondents, which had the lowest frequency. These are Hsinchu, Hualien, Touyuan and Yilan.   consume tea generally. It shows that the main reason which controlled their choice was the taste of the tea. It proved the previous study that consumers would choose the green tea because of the flavor (Lee and Chambers, 2007;Lee et al., 2008b in Lee andChambers, 2010). Actually, this research provided five attributes as the main reason, such as taste, aroma, health , trend and habit. However, no one chose aroma or trend as their main reason to decide the green tea preference. In Table 2, it could be found that both male and female chose tea by taste preference, which were 53% (52/98*100) and 59% (60/102*100), respectively. It also proved the previous study as mentioned above. In addition, this research speculated that young people were still concerned about their food consumption based on the taste preference, to others. Following the above analysis, it could be found that there was not a significant relationship between gender and taste preference factor (Pearson Value=0.714), as can be seen in Table 3   the respondents come from could afftect their preference for tea. But it had negative relationship with gender, categorised age, and education level. It means that there was no significant correlation between taste preference to gender, categorised age, and education level. On the other hand, the origin of the respondents could affect the tea preference factor, particularly taste preference.

Crosstabulation and chi-square test
In addition, all respondents in all age ranges also chose tea by taste preference. These were 18-22 years, 23-26 years, and 27-30 years and they chose as 48% (20/60*100),
From Table 6, the taste preference depended on the hometown or origin of the respondents. For example, most of respondents from Miaoli chose tea because of their habit -as many as 79% (11/14*100), compared to the respondents from Kaohsiung who chose tea for healthy reasons -as many as 52% (11/21*100), or the respondents from Tainan who prefered taste to all the others -(14/15*100). The previous study held in U.S said that U.S. consumers liked green tea samples with lower flavor intensity and lower bitterness intensity (Lee and Chambers, 2010). It also describes the background of residence or hometown influence on the preference of food, as well. Table 6, indeed, shows that the origin of the people had a positive relationship with food (including tea) preference factors.
Moreover, the research also did a pilot-test before the real survey for this study. Based on the result of the pilottest, Taiwanese young people prefered Minamisayaka to other teas after tasting , so this study also hypothesized that they would choose Minamisayaka more than the others too. Fortunately, the result of the real survey was as the pilot-test for this part ( Figure 5).
Unfortunately, from four kinds of tea which were provided, no one chose Matcha as the best preference for them. Based on the obtaining data, the respondents only put Matcha out in the second grade as the highest rank of this category. It also could be known from a short interview which was done in the survey that the taste of Matcha was too bitter if consumed without any additional flavour. Also, some of the respondents said that they usually consumed Matcha as an additional taste in other  forms, such as in cake or in some cosmetics. This situation is also the same as the previous study which chose U.S green tea consumers as the sample target for the study that U.S. consumers liked green tea samples with lower flavor intensity and lower bitterness intensity (Lee and Chambers, 2010). From the study process, some additional information was obtained by the participants, from their feedback. At first, some of them said Minamisayaka and Benifuuki favors were quite similar to Oolong tea. Some people felt excited with Tea bags and Macha because they were different from their familiar tea taste, but some people who often drank tea said that Tea bags were tasteless for them. Some participants said if they discussed about Japanese green tea, Matcha was previously the most familiar of Japanese green tea in their perception.

Validating the research methodology
The study population consists of university students, among whom almost half drink tea beverages regularly (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2010). Thus, using university students as the study population conforms to the main target market of tea beverages and mirrors their economic approach.
With regard to the sample, because of budgetary constraints, representative sampling is impossible, so undergraduate students provide a reasonably matched sample (Lee and Liao, 2009). Therefore, the participants were selected by convenient sampling that is, any participant willing to participate in the survey. The sample size is 200 students, age between 18-30 for NCHU Taiwanese students.The population sample was used because the participants were practiced in drinking tea beverages regularly and they were representative.

The social implications
This study enhances the understanding of tea markets and marketing in the future. The practical implications of this study identified Japanese's green tea consumption preference and the possible market for young people in Taiwan. The social implications of this study show the new trendency of increasing tea consumption per capita in Taiwan. This study also has academic value and value to strategy makers when it comes to green tea marketing stratagey problems, such as originality and value.

Limitation of study
Since every study is unique, this research on Japanese green tea may not be exceptional. There are limitations and risks relating to the undertaking of a research of this nature, both from the operational and methodological points of view. Some young people did not always cooperate during the study and give correct information. Also another limitation might be the survey was carried in one area, Taichung City, and NCHU particularly, while it would have been good to carry it out in different areas of Taiwan and obtain other opinions from young consumers.

Tea Bag
In addition, the limitation of time also influenced the quality of this study, such as the number of respondents who were only 200 people, so it was insufficiently representative to generalise the real situation, especially for a study case in NCHU; a few number of research team who could not be quite intensive to spread the concentration for each respondent; and the limitation of variables to measure in this study as well. Therefore, it can be elaborated for example, by adding several descriptive variables, such as ethnicity, their interest in increased mental or physical awareness or capacity, modifying bodyweight, and/or promoting good health.

Conclusion
This study aimed to identify Japanese green tea consumption preferences among young people in Taiwan between the age of 18-30 years old with the study case in National Chung Hsing University (NCHU), Taiwan. This research provided five attributes as the main reasons, such as taste, aroma, healthy, trend, and habit. In addition, it also used four kinds of Japanese green tea, such as two kinds of leaf tea (Benifuuki and Minamisayaka), a kind of tea bag and tea powder (Matcha).
Then based on the research process, it found that Taiwanese young people prefer taste attribute as the main factor to selecting their tea preferences, to others. Futhermore, the survey participants chose Minamisayaka most as their tea preference, and Benifuuki in the second place. It could be because some respondents informed that the flavors of Minamisayaka and Benifuuki were quite similar to Oolong Tea which is very famous for Taiwanese. On the other side, some people felt excited with Tea bags and Matcha because they had different flavors from their familiar tea, but there were some people who often drank tea who said that tea bags were tasteless for them. Some participants informed if they talked about Japanese green tea, Matcha had previously been the most familiar of Japanese green tea in their perception.
It is obvious this survey has several limitations, such as the undertaking of a research of this nature, both from the operational and the methodological point of view. The young people were not always fully cooperative during the study in giving correct information, and because the survey was only carried out in the area of NCHU with only 200 respondents as the sample, it was insufficiently representative to generalise. Other factors were the small number forming the research team who worked on this study, especially in the survey process and the limited number of variables.