XIAOZHUYUANZI
Kumquat & Bamboo Herbal Tea

Within the rapidly growing category of Chinese herbal wellness beverages and food-as-medicine products, XIAOZHUYUANZI has developed a distinctive market position through a visual language that feels both culturally rooted and contemporary.

XIAOZHUYUANZI is a pioneering Chinese wellness brand inspired by the philosophy of bringing traditional remedies into modern daily life.

The brand is committed to creating a new sensory experience around wellness beverages by combining Traditional Chinese Medicine with contemporary scientific thinking. Its goal is to make wellness knowledge easier to understand and everyday self-care more accessible, modern, and evidence-conscious.

The product range includes rose tea and other herbal wellness blends designed around traditional Chinese concepts of balance, nourishment, and seasonal care.

This project focused on developing a comprehensive brand identity and packaging system for XIAOZHUYUANZI. The primary objective was to establish a younger, more distinctive, and culturally relevant visual identity within a wellness tea market where traditional packaging had become highly homogeneous.

Packaging became one of the key breakthroughs of the project.

We observed that conventional wellness tea products often relied on old-fashioned, conservative, and visually heavy packaging, making it difficult for the category to connect with younger consumers. To challenge this established visual language, we introduced a box structure more commonly associated with skincare products.

This unexpected cross-category approach disrupted the visual conventions of traditional wellness tea packaging. The skincare-inspired format naturally communicates ideas of refinement, self-care, and personal ritual, aligning closely with the brand’s belief in making wellness more scientific, contemporary, and relevant to everyday life.

At the visual identity level, an original IP character was developed as the primary brand identifier, creatively responding to the name XIAOZHUYUANZI.

The character gives the brand greater emotional warmth and memorability while also functioning as a strong visual anchor across both retail shelves and e-commerce environments. Its playful and approachable personality helps reduce the distance often associated with traditional wellness culture, creating a more immediate connection with younger consumers.

The overall visual language is lively, playful, and contemporary, while still retaining a clear connection to Chinese wellness culture.

Through a design system that combines category innovation, strong recognition, and emotional appeal, XIAOZHUYUANZI successfully evolved from a traditional wellness tea product into a pioneering contemporary Chinese wellness brand with a distinctive visual identity, youthful personality, and strong cultural foundation.