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Thread: Tea

  1. #121
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    charging by the sip

    Tourist scammers are everywhere.

    Shanghai tea house charges Japanese tourists 48 yuan per sip



    Many foreigners who arrive in Shanghai are aware of the city's infamous "tea ceremony scams," but not everyone, including two Japanese students who were recently charged an exorbitant amount of money for a few cups of tea. How did the Shanghai tea house manage to justify the students' 2,100 yuan ($324) bill? By charging the tea per sip. 48 yuan, per sip.



    Yes! While the two unsuspecting students were visiting Yuyuan Garden, they thought about trying some Chinese tea when three strangers they met inside the subway station asked them to help take pictures and afterwards invited them to tea. Keen to practice their Mandarin, the students decided to give the strangers the benefit of the doubt. They were taken to a tea house and shown a menu, agreeing on the price of 48 yuan, which they believed was per person, rather than per sip, Shanghai Daily reports.



    After chatting about Chinese culture and history for around half and hour, the bill was served, and the three strangers quickly paid up; however, the students didn't have enough money on them to cover their portion of the hefty bill. The thieving tea house settled with just taking the 1,000 yuan they were carrying with them -- good for around 20 sips of tea.
    Following their ordeal, the students were handed decorative knots as souvenirs; however it turns out that the knots were not well-meant gifts, but served as signals for other scammers that the students had already been cheated.



    Thankfully, the students later called the police after realizing they had been cheated and their money was given back. And the tea house in question? Well it was was aptly named Yuyuan Teahouse; however, it turned out to be nothing more than a common retail store that provided tea to customers.
    Netizens on Weibo were furious over the incident, many asking for severe punishment and labeling the practice as shameful to China.

    “Charging tea by the sip? When will rice be charged by the grain?” said @Shiguoxiansenzirannongchang.
    “Did the restaurant just rip off only these two people? Are there others who have been cheated here? Are such stores going to exist in the future?” questioned @Mangxiaodao_eve.
    Considering, the long history of Shanghai's tea scams, we would have to assume so. Still, it is not like only foreigners get ripped off in China. Locals are just as likely to rip off Chinese visiting from elsewhere. For instance, earlier this year domestic tourists were charged 38 yuan per prawn and 5,000 yuan per endangered fish.

    By Kitty Lai
    [Images via CCTV]
    Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
    By Shanghaiist in News on Apr 12, 2016 5:50 PM
    Gene Ching
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  2. #122
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    Da hong pao

    **** Daniel. That's some high grade.

    This Pot of Chinese Tea Costs More Than $10,000
    Written by CNT Editors April 27, 2016


    Getty
    Wuyi rock tea is said to get its taste from the fresh water and green mountains that surround the trees where it grows.

    If you want genuine da hong pao tea, be prepared to pay up before you tip a cup back.

    We like a good cup of tea as much as anyone, but China's da hong pao is for true (and truly wealthy) brew aficionados only. As one of the priciest teas in the world, it costs more than 30 times its weight in gold, reports the BBC can cost more than $10,000, with just one gram going for roughly $1,400.

    The expensive strain of oolong tea can be found in Wuyishan in southern China, also known as the country's tea capital, which is about a two-and-a-half hour flight from Beijing, or a 90-minute flight from Shanghai. But cheaper versions are also available; travel into town, and you can find da hong pao for around $100 a kilogram. It's still far from what you'd pay for some Earl Grey at your local coffee shop, but it won't cost more than your entire trip to China, either.

    Why the price difference? True da hong pao, a rock tea grown in the mountains, comes from the same "mother trees" that have been used to make the tea for generations, and there aren't many left. If you want to drink tea made from one of the original trees, you'll pay. The market is so exclusive, in fact, that there are brokers who help connect rich tea collectors to sellers.

    If you want to experience China's tea culture, you can easily do so in Wuyishan—but know that the area still doesn't get many tourists, so you'll want to plan your visit in advance. When you're not sipping, be sure to take advantage of local activities like bamboo rafting and hiking.
    Gene Ching
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  3. #123
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    British Tea in China

    Well imagine that. I do like a good cup of Earl Grey or English Breakfast in the morning.

    British tea is booming in China, the drink’s birthplace
    BY ASSOCIATED PRESS | September 5, 2016 @ 2:01 am


    Matthew Davies, Head of International Sales at Taylors of Harrogate, picks up a package of tea in the tea company's tasting room in Harrogate, England, Tuesday Aug. 30 2016. A wave of affluent Chinese consumers, who want the British afternoon tea experience, are boosting British exports of premium tea to China and Hong Kong. (AP Photo / Leonora Beck)

    HARROGATE, England (AP) — Ji Mengyu sinks into a soft chair with her cup of tea to the sound of tinkling teaspoons and light chatter. The opulently decorated Victorian tea salon is quintessentially British, something straight out of Downton Abbey. Except it’s in Beijing.

    The 25-year-old HR professional is one of a growing number of Chinese who are looking past their country’s ancient tea traditions in favor of imported British blends. For Ji, the tea has an aura of luxury and quality, and gives her a sense of partaking in the posh British culture popularized globally by TV shows and fashion brands.

    “I think British people’s traditional customs and culture have a kind of classical style,” says Ji, who says she’s inspired by TV shows like Downton Abbey, but also Sherlock Holmes and Game of Thrones.

    For three centuries, countries in Asia and Africa have been quenching Britons’ thirst for tea, supplying dried leaves worth millions of pounds every year. Now, that trend is showing some signs of reversing. China and Hong Kong in particular are seeing a surge in appetite for British tea blends — some of which are made with leaves from China itself, an example of the twists in trade that the globalization of tastes can create.

    Upscale tea blends from storied British companies like Twinings, Taylors of Harrogate and Hudson & Middleton occupy increasingly more space on shelves in Chinese supermarkets, restaurant menus and online shops.

    Tea houses serving British afternoon tea have sprouted up in the bigger cities in China. Five years ago, Annvita English Tea Company managed ten tea houses around China, serving imported blends and pastries in British-style tea rooms. The number has since grown ten-fold, with more planned.

    “It fits the taste of people who want to pursue a higher quality of life,” says Li Qunlou, general manager at AnnVita English Tea House in Sanlitun in Beijing.

    As a result, British tea companies selling premium blends have seen their exports to China and Hong Kong skyrocket.

    In the first five months of 2016, British tea exports to Hong Kong nearly tripled in value compared with two years earlier. They doubled to the rest of mainland China, data from the U.K. HM Revenue & Customs show.

    Shipments to China and Hong Kong only make up 7 percent of total British tea exports, but the share is growing quickly.

    Some of these deliveries come from Harrogate, a small town in northern England that is the home to Taylors of Harrogate. The fourth generation family-owned company has been selling tea to China for more than 10 years. In the past three years, sales have more than doubled every year, albeit from a low starting point.

    “China produces nearly one half of the world’s tea, so on the surface you would think that there is a limited opportunity for Taylors of Harrogate,” says Matthew Davies, Head of International Sales at Taylors of Harrogate.

    Tea originates from China and has been a central part of the culture for thousands of years. In Britain, tea was not introduced until the 17th century, though it has since become a staple and adapted to local tastes.

    Every day thousands of tea samples arrive in Harrogate for the tasters to evaluate. The business essentially relies on their taste buds to find the right mix of leaves to maintain the signature flavors that the company bases its reputation on. Chinese customers mainly buy Taylor of Harrogate’s Earl Grey and English Breakfast tea.

    “Our approach was to invest time and resources to understand consumer behavior and we found that there are a number of Chinese consumers with a high level of discretionary income and demand for Taylors of Harrogate brands,” says Davies.

    The demand is growing mainly among China’s wealthy middle class and is fueled by portrayals of British high society featured in TV shows, news stories of the British royal family and classical novels like Jane Austen’s, analysts say.

    “Previously, Chinese consumers were more exposed to American culture, McDonalds and Hollywood-style things. These few years, because of the popular British TV dramas, Chinese consumers are more exposed to British brands and the lifestyle,” says Hope Lee, senior drinks analyst at Euromonitor International.

    Another reason for the thriving popularity of British imported tea is the seemingly endless string of food scandals that plagues China and Hong Kong.

    Greenpeace and government investigations found high levels of pesticides or poisonous earths in tea, also in some of the best known brands. Imported premium British tea brands are perceived as being safer and of higher quality.

    Paradoxically, some of the British tea sold in China and Hong Kong is originally grown in China. However, it represents only a small amount of British exports there — about 3 percent, according to Frost & Sullivan, a market research company.

    British tea makers mainly import leaves from Africa and India, regions where the taste for British tea blends has not grown in the same way, for economic and cultural reasons.

    Despite the recent slowdown in the Chinese economy, Taylors of Harrogate and many other companies and industry experts are optimistic about the country’s consumers.

    “We are continuing to strengthen our lengths in China,” says Davies.

    ___

    Helene Franchineau in Beijing contributed to this report.
    Gene Ching
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  4. #124
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    Starbucks

    nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooo

    Starbucks New Tea Line Chases China’s $9.5 Billion Market
    Bloomberg News
    September 11, 2016 — 8:39 PM PDT


    Teavana beverages by Starbucks. Source: Starbucks Corp.

    Starbucks Corp. plans to increase its global tea business to $3 billion over the next five years as its starts selling its new line of tea drinks, known as Teavana, across the Asia Pacific region Monday following the products’ entry in China last week.
    China is Starbucks’ fastest-growing market and the Seattle-based coffee chain is opening 500 stores a year in the world’s most populous nation, aiming for a total of 3,400 stores by 2019.
    The company is looking to China for growth momentum, honing in on China’s 63.2 billion yuan ($9.5 billion) tea fixation, which is almost ten times bigger than the country’s coffee market. Starbucks’ new tea products may also align with Chinese consumer’s growing demand for products aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles.
    “The health trend is growing strongly across Asia, and as with most things, uptake of new trends in China tends to be faster than the rest of the world,” said Matthew Crabbe, Mintel Group Ltd.’s head of Asia-Pacific research. “There is a strong tea identity in Asia and it also chimes well with the particularly Asian view of healthcare as being centered around prevention, rather than cure. Because of this, tea-based products are likely to see strong growth."
    Tea Culture
    Starbucks acquired Teavana, a line of teas and tea houses, in 2012, and says the drinks have done well in its U.S stores. American consumers seeking out healthier food and drink options have propelled its tea business to grow 12 percent last year, with best-seller iced tea growing at 29 percent.



    In China, the much larger market for tea drinkers is growing at about 6 percent, roughly the same pace as coffee. For Asia, where tea-drinking is a well-developed habit, Starbucks had to invent tea drinks in bolder and more sophisticated combinations to catch consumers’ eyes.
    With the rich tea culture here, we couldn’t have beverages that are expected or common, or we could not give consumers that feeling of premiumization and of being different,” Vera Wang, the company’s director for product line innovation in China and Asia Pacific, said in an interview Monday.
    For Asia, its offerings include black tea with ruby grapefruit and honey and green tea with aloe and *****ly pear, relatively more complex recipes compared to U.S bestsellers like mango black tea and peach green tea.
    Starbucks may already be late to the game, with growth in China’s tea market slowing to 5.8 percent last year, after steadily decelerating from an 18 percent growth rate in 2010, according to data from Euromonitor International.
    "Tea is, of course, a mature market in Asia,” said Crabbe. “It’s been around for thousands of years and we saw how rapidly bubble tea took off among teen consumers across Asia several years ago. But as those younger consumers get older, they will trade to something more sophisticated, which is where Teavana could fit in."
    — With assistance by Rachel Chang
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  5. #125
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    Tea partiers take heed

    Interesting read.

    Why Our Founding Fathers Adored Chinese Tea
    BY CLARISSA WEI
    October 21, 2016

    Chinese steel may have a bad connotation in today’s political circles, but for early Americans, buying Chinese was preferred.

    China gets a bad rap in the US nowadays. According to a 2015 Pew Survey, just 38 percent of Americans have a favorable view of China. “CHY-NA,” à la Republican nominee Donald Trump, has been painted as the ultimate antagonist—for stealing our jobs and devaluing their currency to incite exports. With negative rhetoric at a high, perhaps now is an apt time to cool the vitriol and be reminded of how, once upon a time, China provided our founding fathers with the most important beverage of colonial times.

    “It makes me cringe when I hear people talk about China taking our jobs, because we’ve treated the East so badly throughout history,” Bruce Richardson, tea master for the Boston Tea Party Museum, says.

    Chinese products, which also included hand-printed wallpaper and ceramics, were adored as status symbols for early American colonists and the British. Chinese loose-leaf tea became the highest ranking of these goods and by 1765, it had so much clout that it represented up to 90 percent of the imports of the powerful British-owned East India Company.

    Even back then, America imported more from China that it exported.


    Colonial teas at the Boston Tea Party Museum. All photos by the author.

    In early colonial times, Darjeeling tea did not exist, nor was Earl Grey invented yet. Tea bags weren’t conceived until 1904. Blended teas were virtually unheard of in the colonies, and unlike the India-sourced black teas of today’s Western tea service, all teas were Chinese loose leaves and came to the West via a port in modern-day Guangdong province.

    As a bachelor, George Washington had beautiful tea sets made from China, which, according to Richardson, was a sign of good taste and training. John Adams and John Quincy Adams were both avid connoisseurs. Thomas Jefferson was a fan of green tea, presumably produced in the Anhui province of China. Paul Revere made silver tea pots.

    Tea became such a prized product that on December 16, 1773, 342 chests of it were thrown into the Boston Harbor to protest the British.

    That’s how tremendous of a role the drink played: The British thought they could capitalize on the colonists’ thirst for tea and the Americans were furious because they knew that if the market was saturated with cheap tea, people would not be able to resist it. And so they dumped it all overboard.


    A ship docked outside the Boston Tea Party Museum.

    Those 342 chests contained five different types of Chinese tea: bohea, congou, souchong (all black teas), hyson, and singlo (all green teas). Of course, those names are all *******ized Anglicized versions of Chinese; they do not resemble the Chinese language in any way.

    “We Westerners have a hard time with language,” Richardson jokes. “It was long trip from Canton. A lot of rum came from the sailors’ mouths.”

    Bohea is a butchered version of the word Wuyi — a mountain in the Fujian province of China. It’s a black tea and was the cheapest variety of the day. Congou is a derivative of the word gong fu, or kung fu, which simply means “discipline.” It got its name because it reportedly required more technique than the other teas to make. Souchong, known today as lapsang song, was a smoky black tea made from large tea leaves. Hyson, a green tea, was reportedly the favorite of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. In fact, it was so desired by the English that it was taxed higher than the other teas. Hyson was picked in the early spring and had a slight curl to it. Lastly, there was singlo, which also hailed from Fujian and was produced south of the Wuyi mountains.

    The tea protest paved the way to the war that led to American independence. Once the Americans were free from the British, however, they launched their own expeditions to China for tea. The money made off of this trade gave birth to the first American millionaires, who started vast shipbuilding businesses. Years later, in a cruel twist of irony, those very ships were eventually used to transport indentured Chinese laborers to the sugar and tobacco plantations in Latin America to mine guano.


    Both the British and Americans sourced their tea from China.

    On the British side, the thirst for tea was so unquenchable that it caused a national silver shortage.

    “They needed to figure out some way to trade with China and not send silver over,” Richardson says. “So they used opium from India. It led to the [First] Opium War and that’s the great stain on the British reputation.” Americans aren’t exempt for this part in history; we started trading in opium from Turkey.

    For the West, tea from China was the drug of choice and opium was used to finance the growing addiction. Today, the dynamics have completely shifted.

    In America, Chinese products are now considered cheap and corrupt; in China, Western products are king. On the tea front, China is now a growing market for Western tea companies. According to Richardson, the Chinese have been buying heavily from Twinings Tea—a tea company founded in the 1770s and whose founders were on the board of directors of the East India Trading Company.

    “So many Chinese folks these days just want the Western packaging,” Richardson says. “They are now shipping tea from China back to China.”

    It’s a sobering reminder that the dynamic between China and the States is not as simple as some of the current rhetoric makes it out to be, and that the trade of Chinese products to our country was what made America both a great and a terrible force to be reckoned with.
    Gene Ching
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  6. #126
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    Tea bag tea.. Twinings... Starbucks...

    Might as well drink vending machine coffee

    One student came back from China with some cakes of 9 year old Po Nai(Pu Erh) tea for us.

    Made one of my very few exceptions to my rule against food products from China.

  7. #127
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    Anti-smog tea

    Chinese medicine expert says 'anti-smog' teas ineffective
    11 January 2017


    TAOBAO
    This "anti-smog" tea sold on Taobao promises to "boost lungs and moisten throats"

    As parts of China continue to be engulfed by choking smog, many are turning to traditional Chinese medicine to combat the pollution's effect on their health.
    One practice that has gained popularity is drinking "anti-smog" tea, which some believe can "clean" their lungs.
    But a leading Chinese medicine practitioner has sought to dispel this myth, saying it is ineffective.
    "Anti-smog" teas have become more widely available in Chinese medicine shops, pharmacies and online sites as the smog in China has worsened over the last few years.
    There are different recipes, but they generally are made up of Chinese herbs such as dried flowers and roots.
    The practice stems from the Chinese medicinal belief that drinking certain concoctions can boost one's health and rid the body of impurities.
    A 2015 report by Beijing Morning Post noted that several pharmacies in the capital were selling "lung-cleansing teas to combat smog".
    On popular online marketplace Taobao, "anti-smog" teas can be bought for 20 yuan (£2.20, $2.90) per packet and one listing claims that its combination of seven ingredients including dried chrysanthemums and honeysuckle can "boost lungs and moisten throats", and "combat the smog".


    AP
    Beijing has issued several pollution alerts since the smog began this winter

    But in a recent report by state broadcaster CCTV, Liu Quanqing, president of the Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said such teas were "unreliable".
    He noted, that the digestive and respiratory systems were separate, and that many teas contained ingredients which "may cause health problems if taken for a long time."
    What would help instead, Mr Liu added, was maintaining a healthy diet and boosting one's immune system.
    The same report also quoted officials from China's communicable disease centre as saying that using air purifiers and wearing masks were more effective in combating the smog.
    'Delicious mist and haze'
    The heavy pollution has become an annual occurrence during winter, affecting the north and eastern parts of China the most.
    This year's smog has prompted school closures and warnings for residents to stay indoors, and triggered widespread health concerns.
    One Shanghai surgeon's poem linking the smog to lung cancer recently went viral on social media.
    The poem, which was originally written in English before it was translated into Chinese, describes a lung condition that is "nourished on the delicious mist and haze". That line has stirred controversy as authorities have sought to downplay the smog's health consequences.
    But the surgeon, Zhao Xiaogang, told Global Times that he wanted to make the point that "the intense rise in lung cancer (in China)... is intimately related to smog".
    The government has also tried to censor discussion and block protests, and municipal authorities in Beijing are even contemplating reclassifying smog.

    Reporting by the BBC's Tessa Wong
    I didn't even know this was a thing, but I should've assumed. It would be grand it if it worked.
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  8. #128
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    Tea Pot Fu

    Follow this link for an embedded video. Totally worth the view if you don't know about this art.

    Spouts of Fury: When Tea and Kung Fu Collide

    Great Big Story Great Big Story February 7, 2017
    Ya'an, China, is home to some of the country's best tea. It's also home to the amazing long spout tea performers. This performance art, which dates back to 220 AD, mixes Kung Fu and the long spout metal teapot. Liu Xumin is a tea performer who has spent years mastering this ancient art form. His hope, he says, is to "achieve the integration of tea pot and human, of heaven and human, and of tea and human."

    This Great Big Story was inspired by Genesis.
    I've been to restaurants where they served tea through long spout tea pots like this. They didn't spin the pots about like this guy, but they did pour streams of boiling water into cups that were yards away. It was alarming and entertaining.
    Gene Ching
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  9. #129
    Can Oolong tea make you lose weight? I've been drinking green tea for quite some time now and it did helped me shed a few pounds but it has a bitter after taste..

  10. #130
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    Kung Fu TEA

    Ok not sure if this is old here but I know brother Gene loves this stuff...hehe

    http://cykwoon.freewebspace.com/
    https://www.youtube.com/user/Subitai

    "O"..."Some people believe that you need to make another human being tap out to be a valid art. But I am constantly reminding them that I only have to defend myself and keep you from hurting me in order to Win."
    "O"..."The Hung Style practiced solely in methods of Antiquity would ultimately only be useful versus Similar skill sets"

  11. #131
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    I merged this Subatai

    I posted a yahoo vid on this above, but those don't embed as nicely as YouTube on our forum. Thanks for the assist, bro!
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  12. #132
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    Slightly OT


    Scalding Starbucks tea disfigured a woman and killed her dog, lawsuit says

    By Amy B Wang September 13 at 4:46 PM


    A Colorado woman filed a lawsuit against Starbucks, claiming a cup of tea was served improperly, which led to injuries for her and death for her dog. (Elise Amendola/AP)

    A Colorado woman has filed a lawsuit against Starbucks, claiming an employee improperly served a cup of hot tea at a drive-through window — causing the liquid to spill, severely burning her and ultimately killing her dog, who was also in the car at the time.

    Deanna Salas-Solano is seeking more than $75,000 in damages from the global coffee chain, according to a complaint filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.

    The incident allegedly occurred in September 2015, when Salas-Solano visited the drive-through of a Denver Starbucks and ordered a “Venti”-size hot tea. She did not specify that she wanted her drink “extra hot,” the complaint states.

    When a Starbucks employee handed the cup of tea to Salas-Solano at the pickup window, its lid was not secured, it lacked a hot-cup sleeve, and it was not “double-cupped,” according to the lawsuit. The complaint also alleges that the temperature of the tea was “unreasonably hot.”

    “Once Plaintiff received the cup of tea into her hands, the hot temperature of the cup began to burn her hands,” the complaint states. “Hot tea began to spill out of the cup through the unsecured lid and onto Plaintiff’s body. The tea caused Plaintiff’s clothing to melt. The tea caused severe burns to Plaintiff. Plaintiff immediately experienced intense pain including on her stomach, legs, and lap.”


    Photos of Alexander’s burn injuries were included with the complaint against Starbucks. (Courtesy of Sean Leventhal)

    Salas-Solano began screaming and writhing in pain — at which point her dog, Alexander, jumped into her lap and caused tea to spill onto him, according to the complaint. The dog was taken to an emergency veterinarian, the filing states, and he died a little later from injuries caused by the hot tea.

    Salas-Solano was taken to a hospital, where she was treated for severe burns and, the following day, underwent skin-graft surgery for “2% total body surface area second-degree burn injury to the abdomen and bilateral thighs,” according to the lawsuit. She has since reportedly suffered permanent scarring, loss of feeling and emotional distress, among other things, the suit states.

    The filing additionally alleges that the store had received complaints related to improperly served hot beverages in the past.

    “At all relevant times, Defendant knew or should have known, using reasonable care, that providing hot tea without a hot-cup sleeve, without securing the lid onto the cup, and/or utilizing unreasonably hot temperatures for the water used the make the tea, would create an unreasonable risk of injury to patrons ordering tea at the drive-thru at the Premises,” the complaint states.


    A burn injury reportedly suffered by Deanna Salas-Solano, included in the complaint against Starbucks. (Courtesy of Sean Leventhal)

    A Starbucks spokesman said the company denies the allegations and has video evidence to prove that the coffee chain’s employee was not at fault.

    “I think it goes without saying we’re certainly sympathetic to Ms. Salas-Solano and the injuries she sustained, and my heart goes out to her for the loss of her dog,” Starbucks spokesman Reggie Borges told The Washington Post. “Having said that, we have video evidence that clearly contradicts the claims by her and actually believe they’re without merit. We don’t have any reason to believe that our partner [employee] was at fault in this.”

    Sean Leventhal, an attorney for Salas-Solano, provided The Post with a copy of the complaint but declined to comment further on the lawsuit Wednesday.

    This is not the first lawsuit filed against Starbucks related to injuries from a hot beverage. In May, a jury awarded $100,000 to a Florida woman who claimed she was severely burned and permanently scarred after a lid fell off a Venti-size Starbucks cup and spilled 190-degree coffee into her lap. During that trial, a Starbucks representative testified that the company receives 80 complaints per month related to lid leaks and lids popping off, according to the law firm Morgan & Morgan.

    Starbucks has also been the target of several other recent lawsuits: A cafe in Brooklyn accused Starbucks of copy-catting its “unicorn latte” to create its popular limited-edition “Unicorn Frappuccino” this summer. Two weeks ago, Simon Property Group, the largest mall operator in the United States, sued the coffee chain in a bid to stop the premature closing of its Teavana stores, CNBC reported.

    The latest complaint against Starbucks is reminiscent of a 1994 lawsuit filed against McDonald’s by Stella Liebeck, who suffered severe burns at age 79 after spilling hot coffee on herself in the drive-through of an Albuquerque branch of the fast-food chain. A jury awarded Liebeck more than $2 million in punitive damages, which a judge later reduced; Liebeck and McDonald’s ultimately settled for an undisclosed amount under $600,000. That well-known case later became the basis for “Hot Coffee,” a 2011 documentary that explores tort reform in the United States.
    Poor dog. Starbucks kills puppies.
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  13. #133
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    RIP Winnie Yu

    Winnie Yu served tea at our 20th Anniversary after-party when her company Teance was a Bronze level sponsor.

    Influential tea expert Winnie Yu dies at age 47
    Jonathan Kauffman Sep 13, 2017


    Photo: photo by Craig Lee, SFC
    Winnie Yu, right, at her Berkeley tea house Teance in 2007.

    Winnie Yu, co-founder of Teance Fine Teas in Berkeley, and a woman whose influence on American tea culture was quiet but pervasive, died in Berkeley on September 11 after a year-long illness. She was 47.

    Yu was born in Hainan, China, in 1970. Her parents, who were artists, emigrated first to Hong Kong and then to New York when she was in grade school. She came to Berkeley to attend college, then completed a master’s at the Haas UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and worked as a financial advisor.

    However, friends say, Yu was not your average business school grad. She had grown up immersed in art and traditional tea culture, and was a student of both Buddhism and kung fu. Inspired in part by Roy Fong’s Imperial Tea Court, which opened in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the early 1990s, she mulled over the idea of opening a tea room that would pour — and sell — whole-leaf teas sourced directly from tea farmers in China, Taiwan, Japan and India.

    Around the turn of the millennium, she brought the idea to Fu Tung Cheng, a designer friend. He asked her how much she would charge for such teas, and she told him anywhere from $50 a pound to $400 — in an era when many customers considered a $10 tin of loose-leaf teas an extravagance. “I said, Americans are going to have to come into a shop that represents that quality,” Cheng recalled. “She said, great. You do it!”

    Yu and Cheng opened a tranquil, stylish tea room called Celadon on Solano Avenue in 2002, which drew a devoted clientele but was too tranquil, perhaps, to generate a profit. In 2006, they moved to Fourth Street in Berkeley, reopening as Teance (the name came from the combination of “tea” plus “ambiance”). Cheng designated more of the space to shelves of teas and teawares. In the back, they installed a circular tea bar with a polished concrete top for tastings and educational events.

    Each year, Yu revisited Asia in search of higher-quality teas. Darius Moghaddam, who started as a dishwasher at Teance and rose to store manager and close friend, traveled with her numerous times. He remembers long and perilous trips into the tea mountains of China, arriving only to stay up all night to watch tea farmers process the new harvest.

    “Anything Winnie did she did 150 percent,” Moghaddam said. “We’d hit two to three farms every day, with nonstop travel, trying to absorb as much knowledge and information as we could. She was tenacious and ferocious.”

    Red Blossom Tea’s Alice Luong added that the patriarchal nature of many tea farms in China and Taiwan pose an additional layer of challenges to women who do business directly with them. “As one of the few women in the tea business I will miss her presence and positive influence on the Bay Area tea scene,” wrote Donna Lo of Far Leaves Tea.

    Teance soon exerted its own influence on the tea world. Jesse Jacobs, owner of Samovar, said Yu educated Bay Area drinkers that their seasonal, organic and artisanal culinary ideals should apply to the tea they drank as well. “She has helped deliver tea in that same vein in a contemporary way without *******izing it with, say, bubblegum and banana,” he said.

    In the United States, Yu raised the bar, both in terms of quality and the price that American connoisseurs were willing to pay, said James Norwood Pratt, author of “The Tea Lovers’ Treasury.”

    “Once you’ve had a Taiwanese baozhong (oolong) from Teance, you might have others elsewhere, but you could usually say, well, it’s good but it’s not up to Winnie’s,” Pratt said.

    Yu’s passions were not restricted to tea. She continued to study martial arts, and was an avid fan of kung fu movies, particularly any starring Donnie Yen. Cheng said she would host big gatherings in her house to drink high-mountain oolongs and watch mixed martial arts matches on television. She mentored several young adults, particularly those who had lost their parents.

    According to Cheng, four years ago Yu began playing with a process to make cold-brew tea and coffee rapidly without sacrificing the flavor. Engineers translated the method she came up with, involving a drill and a glass jar, into machinery that could produce 50 gallons every 30 minutes. Yu and Cheng attracted enough investment to begin producing FogDog Cold Brew teas and coffees, with production facilities in Brooklyn and Berkeley. They began selling in Bay Area stores in June.


    By that time, however, Yu had fallen ill. “She fought so hard through it,” Moghaddam said, “and as much as she went through, she didn’t complain once.” She died on Monday, September 11.

    “It was a brilliant career cut short,” Pratt said.

    Winnie Yu is survived by her parents and a brother. Friends and associates plan on holding a memorial in the future; check the Teance Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/TeanceFineTeas/) for updates.

    Jonathan Kauffman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jkauffman@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @jonkauffman
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  14. #134
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    So much meaning in a cup of tea

    Been trying to stay a-political about the recent Asia trip, but it's **** near impossible.

    The meaning behind Donald Trump’s cup of tea in a Forbidden City treasure hall
    Xi’s dinner with the US president in the former imperial palace was much more than a meal
    PUBLISHED : Thursday, 09 November, 2017, 6:54pm
    UPDATED : Friday, 10 November, 2017, 10:52am
    Laura Zhou



    Beijing’s Forbidden City was more than just an opulent backdrop for US President Donald Trump’s first day in China.
    One of the main halls used to stage a set piece on Trump’s tour of the former imperial palace was weighted with meaning and chosen to underscore cooperation between the two countries.
    As part of their higher-than-usual welcome to the Chinese capital, Trump and his wife, Melania, sipped tea and had dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan in the World Heritage Site on Wednesday.


    US President Donald J. Trump (2-L), first lady Melania Trump (L), Chinese President Xi Jinping (2-R) and his wife Peng Liyuan at the Palace Museum, or the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, 08 November 2017. Photo: Xinhua

    The couples took tea in the Bao Yun Lou, or Hall of Embodied Treasures, a Western-style imperial building erected in 1915 to store treasures from other imperial residences outside Beijing.
    It was built with funds remitted by the US government under then president Theodore Roosevelt.
    China’s Qing dynasty government had been forced to pay compensation to eight nations, including the United States, over the Boxer rebellion, an anti-foreigner movement from 1899 to 1901.


    Bao Yun Lou. Undated Handout.

    But the US agreed to cancel the debt and the Chinese government used some of the money to build the hall. The rest was used to create a scholarship for Chinese students studying in the US and to build Beijing’s elite Tsinghua University.


    Bao Yun Lou was rebuilt with funds remitted by the US government under then president Theodore Roosevelt. Photos: Associated Press

    Renmin University international relations professor Jin Canrong said having tea in the building “could send a strong signal to the US government that cooperation instead of antagonism is needed between the two countries”.
    The two couples later sat down for dinner in the Jianfu Palace, a structure that was destroyed in a fire in 1923 along with all of its treasures before rebuilding got under way in 1999 with the help of a Hong Kong-based cultural foundation.


    Jianfu Palace. Undated Handout.

    The Jianfu Palace has no obvious historical links with the United States but the meal was the first time a foreign head of state had dined with a Chinese president in the Forbidden City since 1949.
    The dinner also appeared to run overtime.
    At the start of talks with Xi on Thursday, Trump said the dinner was expected to last for about 20 or 25 minutes but continued for much longer.
    “Because I was travelling and you were so nice and you said, ‘we’ll just do a quick dinner’,” the US president said, addressing Xi.
    “And I think it [had to have lasted] at least two hours and we enjoyed every minute of it.”
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  15. #135
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    Wanglaoji (王老吉)

    Drink Wanglaoji and prolong your life by 10%, popular herbal tea company claims
    BY ALEX LINDER IN NEWS ON DEC 8, 2017 11:40 PM



    Everyone's favorite herbal tea brand Wanglaoji is now claiming that its extremely popular beverage can extend the life of consumers by 10%, a claim that many netizens are finding hard to swallow.
    First established in Guangzhou in 1828, Wanglaoji (王老吉), also known by its Cantonese name Wong Lo Kat, has a long, storied, and rather confusing history. A distinctive blend of mint, honeysuckle, and other herbs, it is one of the most popular beverages in China and boasts of being made through the same process used to make traditional Chinese medicine.
    Taking a page from the TCM playbook, Li Chuyuan, chairman of the Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, a state-owned company that owns one form of Wanglaoji, is now claiming that his herbal beverage can increase a person's life expectancy by 10%, citing a study carried out by the Chinese CDC. Critics note that this experiment was performed on 576 rats, not human beings.
    Meanwhile, netizens have also pointed out that Wanglaoji contains quite a large amount of sugar, not a diet that is typically associated with living an extraordinarily long life.
    "Whether it will extend your life or not, I do not know. I do know that if you drink a lot of it, you'll get diabetes," commented one netizen. "If you don't drink it, you'll prolong your life by 50%," added another.
    I've had this stuff before. It's kind of like Chinese sweet tea, which is silly to me because China has some of the best tea on the planet, so who would want it sweetened?
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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