Wenzhuo Liu In 2021, the East Frisian Tea Museum in northern Germany welcomed a new director, Mirjana Ćulibrk, she was born in Wilhelmshaven, northern Germany. After graduating with a master’s degree in archaeology and museum management, she has been working in related fields. The Tea Museum not only showcases the tea culture of the local East Read more about New Director of the German East Frisian Tea Museum[…]
Martin Bohacik, born in Slovakia, was once the product manager of the British advertising company. After moving to Portugal, he started his own tea “marathon”. As editor-in-chief, Martin, with the help of writers, illustrators, photographers and other personnel, officially released a paper tea magazine named “Eighty Degree” in November 2018, and became famous at once. The response was enthusiastic in the “tea circle” in Europe. I also bought several copies after hearing the news. Martin acknowledged that the magazine seems to have successfully filled a gap in the tea world in Europe and even the world. Over the years, this magazine is still hot. At the beginning of 2023, the ninth issue of the magazine will be released soon. International popular tea readings are very ideal media for the promotion of Chinese tea and tea culture. I can’t help but wonder, there are so many interesting and knowledgeable tea reading materials in the Chinese market, whether they should take the initiative to “positioning” themselves internationally, translate or publish more tea readings in English or other languages?
The Chinese Lunar New Year (Spring Festival) is coming again. What are the interesting New Year tea customs around China? In the south of the Yangtze River, people will entertain guests with Gold Ingots Tea during the Spring Festival, implying the blessing of wealth. The new year tea custom in Zhejiang Province is from the first day to the third day of the first month, and a bowl of Four Ingredients Soup is offered to the guests. Hunan Province serves brown sugar tea first, and then salty tea Six Ingredients Tea, cup after cup until the guests are full. Fujian Province has a tradition of drinking tea in the New Year as a blessing activity during the Spring Festival. Drink a bowl of Sugar Tea, people can have peace, happiness and good luck.
The Christmas and New Year holidays are coming. I believe many people will go to all kinds of parties and celebrations. Here recommends interesting and creative tea and wine blending drinks, which have both traditions to tell guests and winter health care effects. The Naxi ethnic minorities in Yunnan like to drink a kind of tea and white spirit drink called Dragon and Tiger Fight. The blue flames in the tea cup are like roaring tigers, while the hot tea is poured into the cup like a swimming dragon. This lively drink is very suitable for winter holidays, it can also cure and relieve cold symptoms. However, traditional drinks can also be improved to be closer to modern people’s eating and drinking habits. Traditional pottery can be replaced with glass wine glasses, combined with cool cocktail technology, to make holiday drinks more eye-catching.
Article Wenzhuo Liu
Photo Odile Hain
Olaf Tarmas is a professional journalist in Hamburg, Germany. As a student, he worked in a tea shop and became attached to tea. During his career and personal travel, he visited several tea producing places and traditional tea drinking areas in Asia and Europe. He, together with some tea people in German speaking areas and several organizers of Berlin Tea Festival, launched the first German tea magazine t-Magazin in March 2022. In April, C*Space, a shared space in Berlin, Germany, held a press conference for the magazine. In October, it helped organize the Pop-up event Berlin Tea Festival.
Good news for Chinese readers: related article has been published in Wenzhuo‘s column Tea Perspectives of April 2022 <Tea Times 茶博览> tea magazine in Chinese, 观茶者专栏-“欧洲第一个茶园的过去和未来”.
As a decorative plant, tea was introduced to São Miguel island by Jacinto Leite, a native of the Azores in Portugal in 1820. It is the administrative capital of the Azores in the central part of the North Atlantic. Among the tea tree varieties brought to the island, only small leaf tea trees are well adapted to the climate and soil of the island. With the decline of the important pillar orange orchard agricultural industry on the island caused by diseases and insect pests from 1840 to 1875, tobacco, sugar beet, pineapple and tea were included in the experiment as alternative economic industries. In 1878 and 1891, two groups of Chinese tea industry experts were invited to the island to guide tea planting and tea processing, and the tea industry was successfully developed. At the beginning of the 20th century, the island had nearly 50 tea gardens and 10 independent factories exporting tea, which played an important role in the island’s economy. An important part of the island’s economy has been established around the planting, processing and export of tea. At that time, São Miguel island also became the only tea producing area in Europe. However, since the 1960s, the impact of the development of the international tea industry chain on the local tea industry, the shortage of local agricultural labor force, and the local policies to increase milk production have accelerated the decline of the whole tea industry on the island. At present, only two tea gardens with a total area of 25 hectares are still in operation, each with tea factories, mainly producing green tea and black tea. Where will the tea industry of São Miguel Island, which has developed for almost three centuries, and the tea culture derived from it go in the future?
Good news for Chinese readers: related article has been published in Wenzhuo‘s column Tea Perspectives of February 2022 <Tea Times 茶博览> tea magazine in Chinese, 观茶者专栏-“Jane Pettigrew:英国茶学院线上茶课的推动者”.
Jane Pettigrew, who has 39 years of experience in tea industry, tea practitioners who are familiar with her and the British tea associations organizations, gradually realised the importance of professional tea training in the food and beverage (service) industry. In 2015, Jane launched her influence in the tea circle for many years to form a team, established the UK Tea Academy (UKTA) with investor funding, and successfully operated in the UK. Since 2017 UKTA has had licenced tutors teaching the UKTA courses in Italy, Spain, South Korea, France and Germany. Soon after the start of COVID-19 in 2020, UKTA adapted its work to online classes, and now teaches students from all over the world.
Good news for Chinese readers: related article has been published in Wenzhuo‘s column Tea Perspectives of January 2022 <Tea Times 茶博览> tea magazine in Chinese, 观茶者专栏-“Jeff Fuchs:行走于茶马古道上的徒步者”.
Jeff Fuchs, who has lived in Shangri La, Yunnan for ten years, has 17 years of experience in recording and exploring trade routes in the Himalayas and visiting trade participants. He always takes tea and teapots when traveling. His photographic documentary book <Ancient Tea Horse Road> has recorded that he and his team walked along the ancient tea horse road on the Yunnan Tibet line. Based on his book, the documentary of the same name made by Canadian director Andrew Gregg won the documentary award. Jeff has organized and participated in more than 30 Himalayan expeditions, and he has won many Explorer awards such as recently as one of the “100 greatest explorers in Canada” by the Royal Geographical Society of Canada.
Good news for Chinese readers: related article has been published in Wenzhuo‘s column Tea Perspectives of December 2021 <Tea Times 茶博览> tea magazine in Chinese, 观茶者专栏-“Monica Griesbaum：苏格兰的茶泥和希望”.
As the owner of Windy Hollow tea farm in Scotland, Monica Griesbaum explored and learned how to grow and make tea on 24 acres of broad-leaved forest land in Perthshire, in order to further understand tea planting, production and processing, new tea planting methods facing climate change, organic ecological tea industry and biodiversity of tea industry. Monica started the podcast “Tea, Mud and Hope” in 2019, hoping to inspire and encourage more people to pay attention to relevant topics through her podcast.
Good news for Chinese readers: related article has been published in Wenzhuo‘s column Tea Perspectives of November 2021 <Tea Times 茶博览> tea magazine in Chinese, 观茶者专栏-“Laszlo Montgomery: 洛杉矶的中国茶史博客”.
Modern people read less and listen more. Podcasts in the form of audio on demand may be the future development direction of we media. The podcast has low production cost and simple operation, as long as the audience has an Internet connection, it can be shared with anyone anywhere in the world. Laszlo Montgomery, who lived in Los Angeles after retirement, started to build China’s history podcast Teacup Media in 2010 out of his personal interest in Chinese history. Laszlo had many contacts with Wang Xufeng, a tea novel writer who won the Mao Dun Literature Award and a columnist of China national tea journal <Tea Times>…, and was invited to give a speech at Zhejiang agriculture and Forestry University where she taught. Inspired by this, Laszlo added the tea history series to the podcast in 2014. The celadon teacup given by Mr. Wang at that time has been used so far.