CITY GUIDE >Dining Out
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CITY GUIDE >Dining Out
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Same tea, different names
By Ye Jun ( (Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-03 09:23 "Pu'er tea used to be matured naturally while being transported on horseback from Yunnan to Tibet," Wang says. "But now that maturing process can be controlled and standardized." Long Run is another big-name tea group in Yunnan and sold thousands of cakes to visitors to last year's Olympics. Wang Bin, its deputy general manager, says while China produces different teas, pu'er "has stood the test of time". "The tea endures storage, and one can taste culture and history in it." The company has come up with some creative products like the "chacolate" - a tasty tablet made of pu'er tea and Yunnan olive that one can keep in the mouth and let melt slowly. Owing to the big drop in the production of pu'er last year, the Yunnan government is trying to direct production and sales in the direction of dianhong, or Yunnan black tea. "Although black tea consumption accounts for just 2-5 percent of overall consumption in China, it is a growing trend," says Wang Tianquan, GM of the Yunnan Dianhong Group. The group used to export mainly to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Now, besides Poland, Russia, and countries of the Russian Federation, it also exports to Myanmar, the United States and the United Kingdom. "We've hired top-level brand development experts," he says, adding that he believes dianhong will drive China's black tea growth.
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