A deliveryman of Meituan Dianping, a Chinese group buying platform, waits outside a milk tea store in Wuhan in March 2020, central China's Hubei Province. Restaurants and stores have gradually reopened in Wuhan after the city was on lockdown for nearly two months. Photo: IC

Milk tea, with a range of varied flavors, has become a popular drink in China as many cities in China have set up a number of milk tea stores and chain brands. 

Now, with a market size of hundreds of billions of yuan, making milk tea has officially become a new profession in China, according to Chinese market analysts.

Milk tea makers along with other 17 new careers including second-hand car agents and roadside service providers officially became new professions in China, China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) along with State Administration for Market Regulation and National Bureau of Statistics announced recently.

"The technological difficulty for making milk tea is that the mixer should adjust the proportion of different material to meet customers' tastes," a milk tea maker named Huang Peng was cited by the CCTV as saying.

Milk tea maker literally means people who make milk tea drinks by proportionally mixing tea, fruit and dairy products. This new profession will not only facilitate employment, but also will promote the development of tea, dairy and fruit sectors, the CCTV reported, citing the announcement by the MOHRSS.

According to relative data, the number of consumers who enjoy new types of teas has exceeded 340 million, and the market size of the new types of teas is expected to exceed 110 billion yuan ($16.86 billion) in 2021.