Zence Object is giving discarded tea leaves a second life as sleek, sustainable materials that can replace plastic, wood and paper. Founded in Macao and supported by partnerships across the Greater Bay Area, the fast-growing company is building a new model for circular design.

Few companies embody the adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” quite like Macao-born, Hengqin-based start-up Zence Object Technology. Founded in 2018 by local designer Calvin Sio Kai Tong, the company has carved out a niche for itself by converting discarded tea leaves into wood, plastic and paper alternatives that are better for the planet. Zence Object’s impressive growth trajectory has been spurred by opportunities from across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) – a region renowned for rewarding innovative ideas.  

The company’s name conveys its ethos, explains Sio, who was raised in Macao and studied at Taiwan’s Tainan University of Technology. It’s a play on the word ‘zen’ – implying harmony between man and nature – and the desire to make ‘sense’ of sustainable development. The 34-year-old entrepreneur describes Zence Object as a natural progression from his first start-up, Hylé Design, which upcycled waste wood into unique notebooks, homewares and even an award-winning digital camera. Mass production of the cameras proved difficult, however, prompting Sio and his team to start exploring other waste products’ potential.  

Tea leaves are what they landed on, in part thanks to Sio’s personal experience helping out at his relatives’ Taiwanese-style bubble tea shops. “At night, there would be a lot of leftover tea leaves, so I thought, why not try using them?” he recalls. Bubble tea’s popularity was surging across China at the time, and tea itself had been the nation’s beverage of choice for millennia. Sio felt confident there’d be no problems on the supply side. Indeed, according to data from the China Tea Marketing Association, the Chinese mainland alone produced 3.34 million tonnes of dried tea leaves in 2023 (the latest available data), and that figure was growing year-on-year. 

Beyond being readily available, tea leaves hold cultural significance to Sio on two levels. Tea is an ancient Chinese ritual connected to health and wellness, and Macao was once a key node in the maritime tea trade between China and the West.

Supplying eco-friendly alternatives

Zence Object’s two current products are tea board (PrZence, the wood alternative) and tea plastic (EnZence), which entered mass production in 2022. Both are marketed under the brand Chazence. The company’s factory in Guangdong Province can produce up to 5,000 collective tonnes of these tea fibre-based materials annually. A third product, tea paper (FmZence), is currently being developed.

The materials are designed to replace their conventional counterparts in a variety of applications. Waterproof and heat-resistant, tea plastic makes everything from reusable cups and chopsticks to trophies and packaging used by the electronics industry. Tea board, meanwhile, is used to make tables and countertops, and as a finishing material in construction. 

“Currently, our tea board is most frequently used in commercial spaces,” says Sio. Its buyers include major international and domestic beverage brands like Starbucks, Hey Tea, Nayuki and Chagee, along with institutions like the China National Tea Museum in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.

In explaining tea board’s environmental edge, Sio says its carbon emissions are about 50 percent lower than that of traditional wood production because  the latter requires harvesting – an activity dependent on heavy machinery. This is significant, given the construction sector accounts for about 34 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a United Nations Environmental Programme report published this year.

Then there’s the fact that, unlike real wood, Zence Object’s tea boards don’t need to be treated with chemicals. “They don’t have any formaldehyde or volatile organic compounds, and the boards have additional properties such as strong resistance against bacteria,” Sio explains.  

All three products are fully biodegradable in soil, seawater and freshwater. 

Growing the business

The entrepreneur admits that Zence Object’s early years felt daunting as the team navigated research, product development and market entry. Fortunately, support from the Commerce and Investment Promotion Institute (known by its Portuguese initials IPIM) helped the start-up find its footing. One key introduction that IPIM facilitated was with Hey Tea, a popular beverage company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.

Appropriately, given its main product is tea, Hey Tea became Zence Object’s first client. Its reusable, highly recognisable black cup is made out of tea plastic, and was dreamed up in collaboration with the Japanese streetwear designer Hiroshi Fujiwara. The resulting ‘Black Tea’ campaign went viral on social media in 2022. “The cup led to recognition from a lot of people in the mainland and we started collaborating with lots of different brands,” Sio notes.

Zence Object’s growing list of partners includes the Four Seasons Hotel Macao for its eco-friendly QR code signage, Hong Kong’s Michelin-starred Duddell’s for mooncake packaging, and MGM  for the 2024 Macao International Environmental Co-operation Forum & Exhibition. The company also makes the award trophies for Beyond Expo, a leading tech and innovation conference held each year in Macao.

That partnership has been particularly instrumental for Zence Object. In 2023, Beyond Expo helped the company secure its first round of funding: a joint US$2.5 million from the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund (AEF) for the Greater Bay Area and the Asia-focussed venture capital firm Gobi Partners. The investment “transformed us from a workshop into a small and medium-sized enterprise,” Sio explains. It enabled Zence Object to establish an R&D centre in the Guangdong-Macao Intensive Cooperation Zone in Hengqin and an office in Hong Kong that same year, plus a factory in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, in 2024.

Last year the company received around HK$5 million (about US$637,000) from the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP), which further expanded Zence Object’s reach into the Hong Kong market. Then, in April of this year, Zence Object secured a third round of funding – 10 million yuan (about US$1.4 million – from the Macao construction firm AB Builders Group and Gobi Partners. As part of their agreement, AB Builders also pledged to purchase 30 million yuan (about US$4.2 million) in sustainable materials from Zence Object.

Leveraging the might of the Greater Bay Area 

There’s no doubt that the GBA has played a pivotal role in Zence Object’s growth. The company opened a sales centre in Shenzhen back in 2021, a move Sio says let it tap into the tech-oriented city’s talent pool and possibilities for start-ups (Shenzhen is known as China’s Silicon Valley). It also maintains a strong presence in Hong Kong. On top of that, all production now takes place in Dongguan, because Sio sees the city as the best place in China for manufacturing. 

He opted to headquarter his company in Hengqin due to the myriad of supportive policies and incentives the Special Administrative Region government offers businesses making use of the Cooperation Zone. Among these is a subsidy scheme paying young Macao professionals working in Hengqin 4,000 yuan per month. “Being based in Hengqin makes our work considerably more convenient,” Sio notes. The mainland island, separated from Macao by a narrow stretch of water, is at the heart of the SAR’s economic diversification strategy – providing room and resources for growth. 

Sio is grateful for the Cooperation Zone and Macao’s position within the GBA, which he says has provided Zence Object with many opportunities for development. The company’s workforce reflects the region, with staff recruited from Zhuhai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Dongguan “strengthening the expertise of our team,” Sio says. Meanwhile, the GBA’s ‘one-hour living circle’, enabled by infrastructure like the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Macao Light Rapid Transit’s Hengqin line, greatly enhances business mobility. “We can take advantage of the strengths of each of the [GBA] cities,” he says.

Looking ahead, Zence Object aims to expand internationally. This year’s round of funding from AB Builders Group Limited and Gobi Partners is key to the vision, which Sio says will be focused on “development in the construction industry”. Southeast Asia strikes the ambitious founder as a logical next step due to the region’s “tremendous volume of renewable resources and waste.” With roots in the GBA and sights set globally, Zence Object is redefining what sustainable design can look like: “We truly hope to help the entire world cut emissions through our green solutions,” Sio affirms. 

Text Kenny Fong | Photos courtesy of Calvin Sio Kai Tong