Beyond the Cup: Seven Tea Brands, Seven Mirrors 4 - Beyond the Cup: Seven Tea Brands, Seven Mirrors — Part 4: Ito En

While Lipton struggled inside a financial vortex, Twinings advanced on brand premium, and TWG searched for its place within a luxury narrative, Ito En chose a fourth path: full industrial-chain control. From tea garden to PET bottle, from cultivar breeding to vending machines, it tried to do everything inside a single closed system. But FY2025 results (the fiscal year ending April 2026) exposed a brutal fact: even the sturdiest "closed system" cannot hold back a tenfold surge in raw-material prices triggered by the global matcha boom. And the 24% tariff the Trump administration imposed on Japanese goods in 2025 has left this rapidly globalising tea company facing structural pressure from both the supply and the demand side at once. This book traces how Ito En rebuilt its pricing power — through technological barriers, financial security inside a closed loop, the right to set standards, and the continuity of its founder's tea-trade DNA. The lesson for Chinese tea brands is double-edged: vertical integration is real defence, but no moat is deep enough to fence out an external price shock. What to copy is the instinct to keep the value chain in your own hands. (Keywords: vertical integration, industrial chain, technological barrier, cost transfer, matcha boom, closed system, Japanese tea)