Consumer Perceptions and Evaluations of Tea during the COVID-19 Endemic Era: Focusing on social big data analysis

This thesis analyzed consumers' perceptions and evaluations of tea in the COVID-19 endemic era using social big data from Sometrend. The purpose of this study was to provide basic data for the development of the tea industry. For this purpose, we selected eight teas (green tea, black tea, puer tea, kombucha, barley tea, pea tea, citron tea, and ginger tea) with more than 30,000 social media posts from consumers from July 13, 2022 to July 12, 2023 from social big data. Next, we collected and analyzed 30 relevant words of consumer perception of each tea and 30 emotional words of consumer evaluation of each tea through social big data. The main results are as follows. First, the associative words consumers mentioned with each tea in their social media posts were categorized into well-being, situation, and food. Second, the sentiment words consumers used to rate each tea in their social media posts were categorized into positive, neutral, and negative. In conclusion, for consumers during the COVID-19 endemic era, tea has been emphasized for its functionality to promote physical health, its healing properties for psychological stability, and its palatability for good taste.