https://www.scmp.com/rss/500213/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Last December, Sotheby’s Hong Kong announced the launch of its inaugural Puer tea online auction with 20-plus lots, spanning from century-old antiques to modern day tipples. The highest bid of US$71,600 (HK$562,500) went to a 1950 Blue Label tea cake weighing around 330 grams – a lot celebrated not just for its antiquity, but because it is from a rare batch made during the municipalisation of tea production in China. One of the oldest forms of tea, Puer is a variety of fermented black tea... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3177579/why-old-chinese-tea-can-be-worth-more-wine-or-whisky?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3177579/why-old-chinese-tea-can-be-worth-more-wine-or-whisky?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 13 May 2022 08:00:17 +0000 China and Hong Kong are home to more than 600 billionaires, and Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen each have more resident billionaires than either New York or London. Individuals as varied as tech entrepreneurs Zhang Yiming and Jack Ma, property developer Yang Huiyan and business magnate Li Ka-shing have all amassed incredible fortunes. Yet none have a position of financial primacy like Howqua, a Qing dynasty merchant who on the eve of the First Opium War (1839-42) was believed to be not just the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3175760/who-was-19th-century-merchant-howqua-chinese-bill-gates?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3175760/who-was-19th-century-merchant-howqua-chinese-bill-gates?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 29 Apr 2022 04:00:17 +0000 The unassuming cup of tea has gone through wars, political intrigue and disrupted trade relations, to land at your table. To understand the struggle, let’s go back almost 200 years. Britain’s demand for tea was one of the major triggers of the First Opium War in 1839. The three-year war resulted in China ceding Hong Kong to the British Empire for 156 years. In England, tea was a relatively unknown drink until the 17th century, when Catherine of Braganza, an English queen by way of marriage,... https://www.scmp.com/food/why-britain-went-war-china-over-beloved-cup-tea/article/2154488?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/food/why-britain-went-war-china-over-beloved-cup-tea/article/2154488?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Jul 2018 11:15:15 +0000