Monday 7 June 2010

TEA SHOP IS EVOLVING OVER TIME IN MALAYSIA


Hi! everyone,

Franchising concept is becoming popular amongst the Chinese teashops worldwide. They not only sell a variety of tea-leaf products, but also provide places for customers to experience fine tea brewing and the art of Chinese tea-drinking.

These shops are run not just by retirees in the Chinese community but many younger persons and students have participated in this popular Chinese cultural art form.

The Kung Fu tea ceremony literally means brewing tea with great skill. In brewing Kung Fu tea, a person needs to focus on symbolic hand gestures as practised in the Japanese tea ceremony. Some of these teashops are not only cultural brands, but also cultural business as well. They are more inclined to an enterprise which integrates body, mind and soul.

No surprise that there is a Chinese saying that tea is one of the seven basic daily necessities of life – besides fuel, rice, salt, oil, soya sauce and vinegar.

But in the early eighties, Chinese tea-drinking seemed to only interest the elderly people in Malaysia. Many of these people have a strong desire to introduce the art to the younger generation as they feared that the art, which has been around for over 5,000 years, might face extinction.

Thanks to all these group of people for their wise move and action.

Instead of shrinking, these teashops in Malaysia eventually expanded to serve more variety of tea-flavoured dishes such as Oolong tea rice, Oolong tea-fried vegetables and Jasmine tea-steamed fish.As the time go by, more items were also added, such as tea mooncakes to widen its product range.

Today, you can even find tea bags or powder form. This is to cater for convenience of urban folks who have hectic lifestyles. We can also find tea cafe chains which runs like the Starbucks cafe concept in Malaysia.

Their wise move makes life more interesting with these additional activities. It turn out to be a real true blessings instead.

James Oh

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