Tea sale aims to make pots of cash
First auction dedicated to tea is expected to make HK$10m, with one lot valued at HK$1m
The city's first tea auction expects to pull in up to HK$10 million as mainlanders drive up the prices, with one box of tea leaves expected to fetch HK$1 million.
Fortune Auctioneers will auction more than 190 lots of tea, teapots and utensils from private collections from Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing and Guangdong.
Tea expert and auction planner Vincent Chu Ying-wah said the "Sensation of Tea" auction would be the first in the city to sell exclusively tea and tea-related items.
He said he hoped it would make HK$8 to 10 million and expected buyers to be mostly mainland and Hong Kong tea collectors and antique dealers.
"We have had a tea-drinking tradition for a really long time, just like the French drink wine," he said. "Chinese people have got wealthy and tea is a necessary thing [for us]. This is why the price of tea still keeps going up."
He said he hoped it would be the first of many such auctions.
The prize lot is a 20kg box of narcissus oolong tea bearing the Wu-Yi brand which has been valued at nearly HK$1 million. The tea was exported to Singapore in the 1960s and passed through many hands before being brought back to Hong Kong by a local collector who bought it from a Malaysian-Chinese tea connoisseur from Penang.
