College project adds a splash of color

"The longer hot water is poured over it and the hotter the water is, the longer time that material's color keeps changing."

According to Zhou, to take good care of the lychee tea pet, it needs to stay dry when not in use, and the owner should "nourish" it frequently with tea.

The course not only tasked them to design the product, but also produce and sell it.

The four took nearly a month searching for a factory to make their product, and finally found one after negotiations with more than 20 production companies across the country.

They produced 100 for the first batch, to give to friends and family.

The lychee tea pet received positive feedback when the team made their final presentation, which encouraged them to continue to make more for sale.

"None of us had marketing experience before, so we tried different ways, from setting up a stall to opening an online store on e-commerce platform Taobao," Zhou says.

They also hosted livestreaming shows introducing their work, which attracted more than 1,000 viewers. "But nobody bought the product, which frustrated us," Zhou recalls.

Their effort finally paid off when they started to make short videos of the process of the transformation the tea pet undergoes and upload them on various social media platforms. Since then, they have sold more than 20,000 tea pets.

Wang says now she and Zhou are responsible for managing the orders and packaging－the tea pets will be shipped to them from the factory, then they will re-examine each one with a water test before they send it to buyers.

The team applied for a patent in January. But there are already some similar lychee tea pet products sold online.

"It's not an easy path for original design products, but we want to continue with more attention on intellectual property. We hope the customers will like our products and support original designs by college students," Wang says.

Besides the lychee-themed ornament, the four are planning to design more tea pet products, as well as some cultural and creative items representing Lingnan culture.