Tea Emperor

So far we have been existing on Twitter for about 1 month, but only started more actively twitting from this week, thanks to all the new friends and followers, it’s been really nice to have you around!

This week we are happy to find many interesting twitterers to follow, to read and learn things about tea, life, zen, health, taste and much more. We decided that from now on every Sunday we will have a small post of Tea- Twits links to record our own twitting activities as well as to re-thank all the friends who share their time and knowledge with us online, through posts or tweets:

Interesting articles we read and tweeted during this week:

Does Richard have perfect pinch?

China - Global Tea Producer (RT  @teaguyspeaks)

Interesting history of Pork Rib Tea, which is actually not “tea” and More about the Pork Rib Tea (our own related post)

Comparing Teabags - Not all teabags are created equal! (RT @englishteastore)

UK Tea Council predicts in 2010 “Afternoon Tea will become more popular during business meetings” (RT @highteasociety)

Taiwan Teachings: A curious tea lover heads across the world

“Wood You Like a Cup of Tea” Pot (RT @teaguyspeaks)

RT @teaformeplease: RT @tea_robot: Loose tea has one tenth the carbon footprint of teabag tea

Special thanks to  @joiedetea who RT our post: Drinking tea - back to the harmony of nature

and to @englishteastore who #followfriday us, to @LittleYellowTPot for adding us to your list, thank you all!!!

We really enjoying twitting, so maybe our weekly Tea-twits list will grow longer and longer all the time?!

Go follow those nice twitterers above and of course, welcome to follow us.

In HuaShan Culture Park , Taipei, the 1914 Connection Cool & Easy Tea is currently on exhibition until March 5, 2010. In this exhibition, a group of Taiwanese young designers born after 90′, present their design works around the concept of “tea”.  In contrast to the traditional tea ceremony and tea pots, their modern design transform the concept of tea into objects that bring sensation and joy to daily life.

You could find tea design in different areas such as designs for a conceptual tea house, tea snack packaging, tea leaves container and tea pots. The design tea pot above is called “Tea Bag”, quite interesting, isn’t it? I like it! Below is a fisherman fishing tea, lovely!

In addition, discussion forums on the topic of tea are held on every Saturday and Sunday during the exhibition, where experts from different field including literature, travel, food, yoga are invited to discuss and share their experience on tea. Some works in the exhibition also explore the relations and dialogues between tea and flowers.

Due to my current residing in Finland, I wasn’t able to see the exhibition in person. Thanks to the social network community I at least get to see some of the tea designs from Flickr.

Below is slideshow of photos taken by  Aeternitas. on Flickr, including HuaShan Culture Park in Taipei and some designs from Cool & Easy Tea Exhibition. Please, go have a look and feel the modern, young, fresh tea design from Taiwan.

More info on the tea design exhibition:

HuaShan Culture Park - Tea (in Chinese)

Other posts related to Taiwan:
New fusion kitchen? Taiwanese afternoon tea!
Taiwanese Bubble Tea (Pearl Milk Tea)

Other posts related to Design:
Hang your tea like hang your T-Shirt?!
Blomus - Loose tea infuser

During my visit to Taiwan in December 2009, I found this new fusion kitchen where Taiwanese afternoon tea is served.

Taiwanese afternoon tea? you might wonder. Well, as well-known as English afternoon tea can be, the equally, if not more enthusiastic tea drinkers in Taiwan, surely should develop their own Taiwanese afternoon tea, right?

Taiwanese afternoon tea is a new concept developed by the newly-opened DaiWanMi restaurant. It serves both authentic Taiwanese dishes as well as Taiwanese street snacks with some conceptual fusions from Japan and England. In their take on Taiwanese afternoon tea, the result is common Taiwanese street snacks arranged in Japanese dining style, with a beautiful Chinese tea pot that is reminiscent of an elegant English tea afternoon. Lovely!

My personal experience on the Taiwanese afternoon tea was excellent. Snacks are tasty, visually beautiful, clean, and well presented. The pot in use for the tea, is elegantly designed art tea pot. As for the tea, there are several typical Taiwanese and Chinese tea in options, such as Oolong tea, green tea, jasmine green tea, Pu-er tea.. etc. So Taiwanese afternoon tea here doesn’t refer to any specific kind of tea, but an innovative concept of combining several best elements together to create something very Taiwanese and original.

Some more words about Taiwanese snacks: they refer to big varieties of food locally developed in Taiwan, commonly seen on the street and night market and very well-known in Chinese speaking world for their original and delicious tastes. If you ask anybody from China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, what comes to their mind when thinking about Taiwan, I bet that nine out of ten will say Taiwanese snacks and bubble tea.

Therefore the idea of presenting Taiwanese snacks in an elegant style, packed with familiar afternoon tea concept, is to my opinion an really smart move to go international. Indeed, one ambition of DaiWanMi is to bring Taiwanese local taste to international stage. DaiWanMi means “original taste from Taiwan”, pronounced in the local dialect Taiwanese. According to the news the restaurant has received some inquiring from China and Malaysia.

Here is TaiWanMi’s website (in Chinese)

Actress Jodie Foster was spotted on a bubble tea break. As you can see, the answer is celebrity association. Now, the Taiwanese bubble milk tea has it made because it is tasty, sweet, possibly vegetarian, non-fattening, soft, milky and chewy - a perfect drink and cake combined. Has anyone else seen a celebrity trotting around with one of these cups?

BRAND TEAS LACED WITH BULK CTC TEA RUINS TEA FOR CONSUMERS

Taiwan’s authorities, namely Control Yuan, claim that some local tea brands are laced with imported leaves and sold under the name of Taiwanese tea, which hurts the interests of consumers.

Tea farm on the beautiful island of Taiwan. Photo by Harry Huang.

ORIGIN MATTERS

Controlling body points out that sellers can blend local tea with imported tea, but tea sellers should clearly indicate the ration of imported tea and local tea. To me this sounds like the complains of the Indian Tea Board that encouraged their tea plantations to grow orthodox specialty tea. The underlying motivator seems to be protectionism.

IMPORTED GREEN GOLD

Taiwan imports around 25,000 tons of tea every year, 74 percent of which comes from Vietnam. The imported tea ends up blended with local tea and sold as a Taiwanese product, this is “unreasonable” and “hurts the interests of consumers.” Although Taiwan imports 19,000 tons of tea from Vietnam every year, one cannot find tea labeled as Vietnamese on the local market.