In the West, specialist sellers choose to distribute themselves evenly across the city, trying to become someone’s “local”.
But, here in Asia, different sellers; direct competitors, often choose to huddle together in a street or market renowned throughout the city.
Buying tea in China, I feel like I’m the king, or at least riding the wave of a buyer’s market. I enter one of these markets, then “kick some tyres” talking to sellers, getting some idea of prices. Maybe I taste a bit, but I don’t buy; you see, I’ve promised...
瓜子 (guazi) or “Melon Seed” is the name of an online used-car selling platform.
It’s an example of how brand conventions have evolved in China beyond fruits (Apple, Blackberry) to the names of dried food commodities (Xiaomi, Sesame, etc.) It’s also an example of a shift from branded physical products to services.
Actually, the subject of this month’s Strainer is not a tech startup or a financial service. It’s not even the humble melon seed itself (a fine Autumn snack); it’s a variety of green tea that is also named 瓜片...
There are things I might perhaps do differently if I were starting the Strainer column for the first time in 2021.
I’m not saying I would be right to do them differently; I’m not saying the results would be better. But let’s scratch that counter-factual itch anyway.
For one, I might be tempted to use the “Tea Opinion Leader” moniker. The whole KOL thing hadn’t kicked off in 2016. If starting this gig afresh, the pun might just be irresistible.
Another asset I might feature prominently would be the image of Chinese-tea-in-a-wine-glass.
I’ve...
We had just 1 hour minutes to fill four baskets. Any less, we were told, and the local tea master would reject the batch as a waste of effort.
So off we went to work on a hillside overlooking a road on the edge of Qiandaohu in neighbouring Zhejiang Province. With baskets attached to our bellies, our job was to pick those leaves from the bushes which were big enough to be called leaves but small enough to retain the desired pale green shade and moist texture.
It didn’t take...
