As a long-time, caffeine addict it is no surprise that I have developed an interest in Chinese tea. Despite having a number of retail & wholesale tea markets in Shanghai, I find it is somewhat challenging to get beyond the generic green and oolong teas.
With the Spring teas now hitting the market, I was inspired by a recent City Weekend feature on Chinese tea and figured I would delve a bit deeper. Rather than just relying on local tea markets though, I have decided to use Taobao instead. While the downsides of using Taobao include (i) not being able to smell, see and taste the tea leaves in person and (b) having to deal with IE as that is the only browser Taobao supports, I believe they are out-weighed by the benefits: (i) able to rely on the Taobao rating system as a proxy for quality and trust, (ii) able to buy direct from small tea factories increasingly the likelihood for authenticity in the tea leaves, and (iii) less likely to be cheated as a foreigner. While having a knowledge of Chinese and being located in Shanghai makes this exercise easier for me, the fact is foreigners living abroad with no knowledge of Chinese could do the same by using tools such as Chrome’s Webpage Translator feature and a Taobao agent to ship purchased products to non-Chinese addresses.
Armed with the Chinese-language 茶叶地图 (Tea Leaf Map) and Baidu Baike I intend to make my way through ~ 100 teas – one a week. I will order the tea from a local tea merchant on Taobao then post a bit of information, photos and a link to the Taobao merchant here on this blog.
More Resources:
- The Story of Tea
- How to Sign Up For a Taobao Account (think eBay)
- Registering For an Alipay Account (think PayPal)