After a tough beginning, one man's commitment and dream of creating a chain of tea shops has reaped rich rewards
Tea has a rich history in China, and has always been enjoyed by all of Chinese society, regardless of status or wealth.
Chinese healers regarded tea as a cure for a variety of ailments, nobility considered good tea to be a mark of social position, and the rest simply enjoyed its flavour.
Given its history, it is perhaps not surprising to find that a company dealing in imported luxury products also manages a chain of tea shops. Indeed, Fook Ming Tong Tea shops rub shoulders with the likes of Alexandre de Paris, Narumi, Lalique and Rosenthal; all of which are brands imported exclusively by Thomas Lee Siu-kit and his family's trading business, Shiamas.
Mr Lee, who is managing director of Shiamas and Fook Ming Tong, has always been a tea aficionado, so it was a natural step to open a tea shop. The idea first occurred to him while in Taiwan on business.
'Actually I was opening Gucci in Taipei. In Taipei in the early 1980s there really wasn't much to do, and I'd sometimes find myself wandering into a tea shop. They had a system there that allowed you to taste various types of tea, whereas in a Hong Kong tea shop you had to order the particular tea you wanted,' said Mr Lee.He had noticed that tea appreciation in Hong Kong was becoming more popular and new methods of tea drinking were being introduced.