Reinventing tea for Chinese palate

When a typical Chinese customer walks into Martin Papp's store - it has well-arranged, colorful canisters covering the walls, and glass jars filled with unknown herb blends in the middle - he might wonder whether the store really sells a commodity with thousands of years of history in China: tea.

"When I came to China, I found almost none of my friends of my age really wanted to take me to drink tea," said Papp, the 32-year-old US citizen who started his tea business Papp's Tea in Beijing four years ago. "That was when I saw the opportunity in China to really show that tea can also be very fresh, new and exciting," he said.

Traditionally, Chinese people drink tea hot, which is usually made by a single type of tea leaves. At Papp's Tea, however, the brew could be hot or iced, pure or blended, and even sparkling - that is, a fermented, carbonated tea drink called Kombucha.