china snippets – green tea

there’s so much to say about china, some good, some bad, so i’ll do it bit by bit..

chinese tea culture is played up a fair bit to tourists visiting china, although i think that tea is quite a lot bigger in japan than it is in china. even in places that have been recommended for tea, you dont see half as much shops or tea on display than if you were japan.

not all eateries have tea on their menu either, which was rather surprising to me. i kinda got the sense that if i wanted to experience chinese tea culture, i would have had to go searching quite hard for it. it certainly wasnt like walking along the streets in kyoto and seeing tea everywhere.

what struck me the most, however, was the cold bottled tea found in provision shops and convenience stores. it was almost impossible to find unsweetened cold green tea in china! i think i only saw it once in one of the nice convenience stores in shanghai.

being very used to unsweetened green tea in japan (regardless of whether it’s cold or hot), i recall the first mouthful i took of the first bottle of green tea i bought. oh man.

back home i used to bring japanese high school students visiting singapore on their school trip around, and i once let them try the heaven and earth green tea that mcdonald’s offers, and i imagine that my expression when i had that mouthful was pretty much similar to theirs – shock and horror :P and the thought “since when did sweet green tea exist?” flashed across my mind. 本当にありえなかった。

it’s interesting that my time here has completely changed how i feel about cold green tea.. because before that bottle in china, i’d completely forgotten that sweetened cold green tea exists, even though i’d been drinking that stuff back in singapore way before i came over – my favourite was the heaven and earth osmanthus tea, although i preferred yeo’s over heaven and earth when it came to the regular green tea.

i have to admit that i very much prefer the unsweetened version though. does it exist in singapore? if it doesnt, i’ll have trouble when i go back…