Getting a taste of spring tea in Beijing

The city of Beijing's most famous tea street saw ambassadors and counselors from around 10 countries coming to explore Chinese tea culture and drink some of this year's new tea, on April 20, at an international tea-tasting.

The event is hosted by the China Agricultural Wholesale Markets Association (CAWA) and Beijing Er Shang Group, complete with performances and lectures on how to drink three types of tea in a traditional way.

China has used tea as a beverage for several thousand years and it spread outward gradually so that it is recognized as a most popular, healthy drink worldwide. In their daily lives, the Chinese consider it a necessity both materially and spiritually, and the country has many time-honored brands.

According to the chairman of the CAWA, Ma Zengjun, "Chinese tea has an extraordinary taste, and is well-known here but it does not have the global name that, say, Lipton in the UK has, so we need to establish a tea-ranking system and package tea according to the various customer needs."

Ren Changqing, the GM of Er Shang Jinghua Tea Industry, adds, "Jinghua company is a center of tea development on Maliandao St, in the Xicheng district, Beijing's best-known tea street and we hope the ambassadors and counselors who came to the celebration can help us promote Chinese tea products and tea culture around the world."