To be or not to be!

       The situation of those Taiwanese who are doing tea business is quite similar to that of the Western wine industry in the mid 20th century, in which it is on a transition point of becoming highly industrialized or not.  
      Back then, the trading mode of wine industry was pretty much like auction.  Moreover, during that time the general public considered wine as a luxurious product for the upper class and the wealthy people.  However, in 1976, wine from California, USA won the world championship in Paris, France.  This caught people's attention all over the world because Californians use scientific methods producing their wine and are capable producing large number of wine relatively much easier.  According to "economy of scale," when the total number increases, the cost-per-unit goes down.  Hence, the product price should be cheaper than before.  Under these circumstance, more and more people will be capable of buying wine.
      Although my factors might seem quite persuasive for Taiwanese tea business participants to consider, there is a powerful psychological factor keeping my fellows from making changes.  That is the "prisoners' dilemma!"  briefly saying, no one knows if adopting the Californian way will better off.  Even though people are not very happy with the current auction-like trading mode, it is still more preferable to the uncertainty of changes.
      In fact, there are quite some other reasons keeping us make a difference.  For instances, Taiwan is only 1/11th of California and in average each Taiwanese farmer only have about 1 hectare of land.  In addition, it is much easier to choose one product from many stores in Taiwan.  Moreover, price is usually the first consideration.    Under these circumstances, most Taiwanese tea farmers prefer trading by themselves instead of establishing a pricing system and let the sales channels do the final tradings.
      As for myself, I am working on finding people who have similar thoughts like me and try our best establish a pricing system and hopefully soon our tea business can become highly industrialized.