For the past 13 years, Hong Kong-born Roy Fong has been brewing up a quiet storm - literally in a teacup. Driven by a thirst to share China's premium teas and the culture and traditions they represent with people in his adoptive country, Mr Fong got on a wave that has grown into what one might call a US tea-drinking tsunami.
Ten years ago there were 200 tea shops across the US. Mr Fong's Imperial Tea Court in San Francisco's Chinatown, then three years old, was one of them.
Now, according to the Tea Association of the United States, there are 2,200 speciality tea rooms and retail shops in big cities and small towns across America.
In 1990 the US tea industry, starting to rebound from a slump in tea drinking that dated back to the second world war, was worth US$1.84 billion. By 2006, strongly flavoured by mass marketing campaigns linking tea drinking and health, this figure had jumped to US$6.50 billion. A leap to US$10 billion is predicted by 2010.
Represented in this surge is 'tea' in all shapes and styles. There are herbal concoctions, fruity tea beverages, Asian bubble teas and sweet'n'spicy chais. Much of what is drunk as tea these days is cold and comes in a bottle - alternatively it is flavoured and sold in bags.
And then there is real tea - which is where Mr Fong comes in. He was the frontrunner and today is the superstar role model - the elder among a growing band of tea importers in the US who are riding the crest of the booming industry. As well as entrepreneur, he is also the teacher tutoring eager westerners that fine tea is analogous to fine wine.
Tea, for Mr Fong, embodies all the best of China's elegance, refinement and history - things few westerners think about when they see the 'Made in China' stamp on cheap goods. Of the 8,000 tea enthusiasts he has on his mailing list, only 100 are Chinese.