After ad goes viral, hotel in China denies it is selling boiled eggs for US$421

A hotel in eastern China has denied it is selling specially cooked boiled eggs – a popular street food that usually costs 1 yuan (15 US cents) – for an eye-watering 2,899 yuan (US$421) each.

But according to an advertisement that has been widely shared online, Toaytt Hotel and Resorts in Wuxi, Jiangsu province said it would supply the luxury tea eggs during a special offer.

“We use eggs from free-range chickens living at an altitude of 1,140 metres [3,740ft] and boil them in top-quality Jin Jun Mei tea leaves,” the ad states, referring to a premium black tea. “The eggs all go through 24 hours of stewing and 12 hours of standing” before they are served.

Tea eggs are a common snack food in China made by cracking the shell of a boiled egg then boiling it again in tea, sauce or spices and letting them steep to absorb the flavour.

The ad said the hotel also added Chinese herbal medicines during the boiling process.

According to a video posted by BTime, hotel staff said they had only made 100 of the luxury tea eggs and they had already sold all of them.

But when contacted by the South China Morning Post, two hotel employees who declined to be named said the advertisement was a hoax. One of them said it had been “Photoshopped” and that the hotel was not selling tea eggs at that price. The second staff member also said the special offer did not exist.