Tea Emperor

OUT WITH THE BULK

Tea Board of India has asked north-eastern states to focus more on orthodox specialty tea aimed solely at the international markets instead of the bulk “crush, tear and curl” tea, which they are mostly producing at present.

A well-managed tea plantation in India on a scenic area by the railway with steam locomotives.

BETTER TEA QUALITY MEANS MORE MONEY

Tea Board has the idea that the states should follow the Sikkim model while maintaining quality close to that of the Darjeeling crop. In essence it would mean that India would be able to produce larger quantity of high quality teas, which in turn would fetch higher price on international tea markets. This is important, because of the strengthening international trend of tea consumption bodes lucrative markets for high-end teas.

DARKNESS

Winter in Finland can be very dark and cold, and some years it is also very wet. It is only natural that every now and then Finnish people need hot tea to keep warm and happy. Now with the daily cup of tea we can also get rid of that darkness, just look what a Korean designer brought to us.

LIGHTNING BAG

Lighting Bag by Wonsik Chae from Takashi Yamada on Vimeo.

RADIOACTIVE AND TOXIC

Think what you like, but to me it looks spooky. I have to admit that at first I thought that it is so beautiful, radiant and glowing etc. It didn’t take too long until the video comes to the point where the tea bag is lifted from the cup and dubiously glowing drops splash back into the cup and form brightly coloured streams. It is like witch’s cauldron full of toxic and radioactive sludge. Do you dare to drink something like this? Will it make your pee glow? What about eyes?

TEA TABLE LIGHT

One thing is for sure, if these tea bags become very common, it means dark clouds to the skies for tea table light manufacturers.

I can’t help smiling when looking at this novel design. Indeed, tea bag doesn’t have to look like “the tea bag”, and It can literally be any shape in your imagination, even better if you are able to put it into practice and make it into an interesting design item, like this one:

It’s not just design for design’s sake. As we tea-drinkers have all experienced: where to put the used teabag is sometimes problematic. I don’t know about you, but I myself often use tea bag more than once, therefore the idea of hanging teabag like hanging T-shirt on the rim of my cup is really intriguing! Although in practice it might apply better with taller cup than smaller one?

In any case, the hanger and tea-shirts look so cute that I am pretty interested in getting my hands on them. Just need to figure out how and from where. I will post more info here if I find them.

What do you think? Do you like this tea design? Would this be useful for you?

Designer: Soon Mo Kang

Information and image source from YANKO DESIGN

Tea Time's Sydney Hurstville Shop

As has written in this post, the most representative tea drinks in Taiwan – bubble tea (Pearl Milk Tea), has found its way to many Taiwanese people’s heart through years. Those like me who live abroad always can’t wait to get our hands on bubble tea as soon as arriving at our home land. During the past years bubble tea has started to be available also in some other countries such as US and Canada.

According to the CNA news in Taiwan, recently a Taiwanese tea chain – Tea Time, has successfully  expandning in big scales to mainland China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macao, Vietnam, USA, and Australia. Especially in Australia, six branch stores have opened in a short time span in responding to the demands and  locals’ high interests in franchising this concept.

Tea Time has already opened seven branch stores in Hong Kong before 2010 and two new ones are opening this month. A briefing occasion for those who want to join the franchising plan is to be held in Hong Kong tomorrow, Jan. 9.

Honestly, the news surprises me and arouses my interests right away. I just briefly checked Tea Time’s website and noticed that there are eight Tea Time stores in Taipei city where I come from, though I have never heard of it before. Well indeed I only visit Taipei shortly each year, but while asking my friends randomly from Plurk (a social media network favored by many in Taiwan), not all of them know about this tea chain. Among those who have visited Tea Time, some do give good comments on certain particular drinks.

So why such an internationally “relatively well-known” Taiwanese tea chain is not especially heard of by many in Taiwan? (at least among my random Internet friends)

My guess is: there are already so many well-established tea chains in Taiwan, naturally Tea Time is not necessarily everybody’s favorites. The fierce competition in this field also make it harder for newer brand to stand out in people’s mind. (Tea Time’s brand history in nutshell: it is the 3rd generation store of its predecessor Cha-Tai house (since 2005) and is officially established in 2008 in Hsinchu instead of in Taipei)

Although not at the moment being the most popular tea chain n Taiwan, Tea Time seems to be doing extremely well in its international expansion plan. I am curious to follow its development on this aspect and for sure this will be one of the tea places I have to drop by in my next visit.

More info:

www.tea-time.com.tw (in Chinese)

WHY CEYLON TEA IS SO FAMOUS?

Sir Thomas Lipton is behind all that fuzz, which today surrounds tea that comes from Sri Lanka, and there’s an interesting story behind it.

A photo of Sir Thomas Lipton. It is difficult to see the man from behind that bush of a mustache, but unfortunately it is part of the style of Mr. Lipton. Must have been a fashionable style back then.

SIR THOMAS LIPTON

Mr. Lipton was a successful retailer and you can read more about the person at Wikipedia. He started with one grocery shop in 1871 and – eventually – was able to expand into a chain of about 400 shops with the help of aggressive advertising and low pricing. Year 1888 he decided to expand into tea and already the following year his organisation sold 4 million lbs of tea. A year later the amount had grown to 6 million lbs. Tea quickly became the most important sales article in his chain of grocery stores and transformed his business.

LIPTON SAILS TO THE CEYLON

In 1890 he traveled to Australia and on that trip he made a short stop at the island of Ceylon. One thing you need to know about Mr. Lipton is that he was all for cutting the middleman and selling directly to the consumers. This is the reason why he wasn’t entirely happy to buy tea only at London’s tea auctions. Anyway, let’s get back to the Ceylon.

Those days there had been similar financial crisis as we have now, so the asking price for tea plantations was right, and he ended up buying several tea plantations. His acquisitions tallied only up to 15% of total tea production on Ceylon, but his marketing engine took care of the image and everybody from Britain to the States thought that Mr. Lipton owns the whole island. Even today we think tea when we see the word Lipton.